Whisper it quietly but the “C” word will soon be on most people’s lips.
Yes, Christmas is fast approaching and many of us may soon find ourselves scratching our heads wondering about novel and innovative ideas for gifts for friends and family.
To help ease the process, a couple of innovative Belgians have come up with a possible idea: chocolate and wine.
The Château de Bousval Vineyard, located near Waterloo, and Brussels chocolatier Laurent Gerbaud have joined forces to offer what they call a “unique sensory experience: a dialogue between wine and chocolate.”
The fundamental ingredients of their collaboration lie, they say, “in the quest for perfection, uncompromising creativity, a love of quality ingredients, and the beauty of the craft.”
The result of the link up are some delightful gift boxes, containing paired chocolates and wines – just the thing for anyone struggling to come up with ideas for Christmas stocking fillers this year.
They have, in fact, created eight unique pairings of wine,olive oil and chocolate which Laurent says are “designed to surprise and delight the senses.”
His inventive chocolate creations are perfectly enhanced and enriched by the Château de Bousval Vineyard wines.
The Château,located in 9 hectares of woodland at Genappe, has established itself as a key reference in the Belgian wine landscape. The estate has been committed to an eco-responsible and sustainable approach since its inception and this approach is recognized far beyond our borders with the likes of James Suckling, Jancis Robinson, and Decanter regularly praising the elegance of its wines. This year Gault&Millau again recognized its 100% Chardonnay Tout Cru by awarding it a Belgian White Wine Award.
Benoit Petillon, sales director, said, “From the vine to the winery, the vineyard is driven by a single goal: to let nature express itself and transform organically and bio-dynamically grown grapes into wines of top quality.”
Speaking in Brussels on 14 October at an event to showcase the collaboration, he said the estate had this year bounced back from a bad 2024 due to poor weather.
This year it has produced up to 20,000 bottles of wine (a record for the estate) compared with just 5,000 last year. About 80 percent is Chardonnay with the rest being Pinot Gris or Pinot Noit.
The wines produced on the hidden-away small estate in Wallonia are either bio or bio-dynamic.
As one of the more northerly wineries it has to pay heed to the fragility of its grapes, one reason why its wine making techniques differ from many others.
Harvesting, for instance, is only by hand (and by sector) and it uses only stainless steel tanks. Only 30 per cent of its casks are new which helps preserve the freshness of its wines.
A couple of favourites are Gouttes d’O, a Chardonnay and a flagship wine of the estate, and Le Petit Gris.
Laurent Gerbaud, meantime, is described as a unique Belgian chocolatier, committed to an artisanal approach. A true enthusiast, he creates flavour combinations that are as unique as they are (legally as he puts it) addictive.
His creations were born out of a two-year trip to China, in search of the right flavours.
Laurent, who has been a chocolatier since 2001 and based at his current premises since 2009, told this site, “We live in a chocolate country so, to succeed, you have do something a bit different from the rest. I do that by using less sugar and no alcohol. My only focus is on (legal) addiction (to chocolate).”
For evidence of that you need only sample some of the wonderful chocolates at his shop opposite Bozar in Brussels.
“For pairings with wine, I try to find a chocolate already in my collection or, if there isn’t one, just create a new one.”
He specialises in dark, fruit and spicy chocolate, nurturing a chocolate identity that goes against the grain of the norm.
A customer favourite about the 100 or so varieties he makes, he said, are Gare Aux Noisettes (a liquid filled chocolate that ‘explodes’ in the mouth). All his chocolates are freshly made each day by an eight-strong, on site team. He is a typical local producer: some 95 per cent of his chocolates are sold from his small shop with the only exports being to Japan.
The gift boxes range in price from 44 euros to 100 euros. The pairings are also available to the public in Laurent’s shop on rue Ravenstein, Brussels.
So, there you have it: the answer to those perennial problems every year…. wine and chocolate pairings.
- Anyone interested in finding out more about this unusual collaboration should visit chateaudebousval.be and www.chocolatsgerbaud.be
