Cult Austrian sweet-wine producers Alois Kracher, and venerable Paris wine merchant Caves de Taillevent have hand-picked chocolatiers to create chocolates of their premium wines.

Alois Kracher, whose chocolates are manufactured in Austria under the name Edel und Gut (noble and good), told decanter.com he spent over a year tasting samples from 50 different chocolate makers before choosing Hansjörg Haag, owner of the Café Konditorei Haag in Landeck, near Innsbruck.

The two types of chocolate bar – one filled with a wine jelly, the other with nougat (both made with Traminer Beerensauslese) – are made in a tiny room under the café. The base chocolate (known as the ‘couverture’) is made by high end manufacturers Caillbaut and Valhrona.

The bars are also made with milk from a rare breed of tiny, grey Tyrolean cows.

For Caves de Taillevent, the search was a bit easier: the merchant’s neighbour in Paris is chocolatier La Maison du Chocolat, and its founder Robert Linxe a long-time customer.

La Maison du Chocolat has come up with bubble-shaped Champagne truffles, called Cambello, made with Taillevent’s own Rosé and Brut Champagne.

The Edel und Gut bars will be manufactured until March, and then again starting in the autumn. Cambello are also around until March, and then not again until Christmas 2005.

Written by Maggie Rosen

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Maggie Rosen
Maggie Rosen
Decanter Magazine, Wine Writer & Editor

Maggie Rosen is a wine journalist, editor and author, hailing from New York but based in London. Aside from Decanter, she has contributed to the Financial Times, The Drinks Business, Harpers Wine and Spirit Weekly, The Wall Street Journal, The World of Fine Wine and Meininger's Wine Business International. She is also a member of the Circle of Wine Writers.