Valrhona chocolate, for years available only to commercial manufacturers, is now one of the most sought after gourmet chocolates, with many dark chocolate varieties, including several unique single-source options.
Founded in 1922 and originally called "La Chocolaterie de Vivarais", the company was renamed "Valrhona" in the 1950s as a play on the words "Rhône" and "valley", where the company is still headquartered. Until 1986, Valrhona sold its products exclusively to commercial chocolate manufacturers.
Valrhona started the trend of providing cocoa percentages on product packages, and most of their eating chocolate products are dark. They have several dark chocolate products made from beans blended from various locations, ranging from 56% to 85% cocoa content. Valrhona still sells a very large selection of chocolate products for commercial manufacturers, but they also sell an excellent line of consumer dark chocolates that are among the best.
Many manufacturers produce some kind of single origin product, but Valrhona has two unique product lines that take this idea even further.
In 1984 they introduced their Grand Cru chocolates. Ranging in cocoa content from 64% to 85%, the 6 dark Grand Crus are made with beans from plantations within a single geographic region: Honduras, the Carribbean, Madagascar, the Dominican Republic, Equador, and Africa.
Valrhona also produces three dark 64% Chocolates du Domaine (estate chocolates). Each of these estate chocolates, from either Madagascar, Trinidad, or Venezuela, is made from the best beans of a specific plantation in a specific year, marked with both the domain and the year, similar to wine (but don't let them sit, they won't get better with age). Another estate chocolate, Chuao (Venezuela) was discontinued in 2004.
