The humble chocolate bar has gone gourmet. Candy Bars Use Wine Lingo In Bid to Justify High Prices explains:
Bars sold at gourmet food shops now boast names like “Premier Cru,” and “Single Bean Origin.” Turn them over and you’ll read about things like the candy bar’s “vintage” (the year the cocoa was harvested) or the “terroir” of the beans (where they came from). Some tout their “varietals,” or type of bean, as well. High on the totem pole: One company makes a chocolate solely from rare Porcelana beans and sells it for about $75 a pound. By contrast, a pound of Hershey’s chocolate can cost roughly $4.
But here’s where it gets really crazy:
Two months ago, the Ritz-Carlton Philadelphia promoted one of its bartenders, Caesar Bradley, to the position of “Hot Chocolate Sommelier.”
Hot chocolate sommelier? Please.
I love this metaphor:
Every gourmet food producer wants its product to be “the next olive oil,” which has developed such a following that some supermarkets now carry bottles costing $30 a liter.