Color:	dark brown ‘n purple cast, slightly opaque
Surface:	uninspired but clean
Temper:	semi-gloss
Snap:	well vocalized, sharp & clear as expected for an 85; a little in the upper register which confirms the opaque film in the color suggesting lots of butter work

fragrant woods (relaxed mahogany ‘n oak) on the intitial uptake, simple & strong yet soft & swaying w/ coconut palms & banana leaves -> coconut meat & new leather gradually dominate the airways grounded in granite grinding on a vallarta bean

Texture:	some stick (thoroughly conched) to carnal engorgement
Melt:	slow

cocoa shot -> dry wood burnished then diffused in butter which also subdues a back bitter forming a scrim against the mouth cavern -> same happens to leather grain w/ coconut -> nuts (walnuts, pistachios) mushrooming into light soil -> touch of fermented black garlic -> leather cocoa -> hits oak in a cul-de-sac

Straight down the boulevard; so static it almost seems Dutched (could Wiess be an habitué of that?). No esters to spark any brighteners of any sort whatsoever (deep conching accounts for much of this [as well as the early clumps in the Texture]). The only light to penetrate & leaven an otherwise dark & rather flat contour (which some will abjure as insipid) comes from cacáo butter in generous, bordering copious amounts that translate during certain sequences into coconut cream, delivering well-controlled phenols & good soil management so taste comes thru fairly clean. Lack of vanilla helps in achieving this transparency, such as it is, even when reaching into that dirt.

Overall feel, however, is somewhat suppressed, ergo, unexciting. Neither the thumping force of Lindt’s 85 nor the ultra-finesse in Marcolini’s Fleur of the same percentage, but a combined compromise of both to split their difference too by scoring its weight in points.

ING: cocoa mass, sugar, cacáo butter; CBS (Cocoa Mass/Butter/Sugar ratio): ~2:3:1

Reviewed 8/21/09