Color:	terra-cotta red thrown into warm brown
Surface:	Barcelona cobbled street tiles beautified into a mold
Temper:	glazed
Snap:	clean clay

dried scents: lots of cocoa, coconut, creosotes; mild red acidity punches thru the top of a mini-Van (re: Vanilla) w/ the windows down to air out the sweat glands

Texture:	stiff & unpliant
Melt:	mechanical & protracted

takes off honey-cream chocolate -> candied cherry -> sweeter still on strawberry -> redder on raspberry -> deeper on currant -> catches wine vine, somewhat astringent, softens around coconut cream fill as fruits explode back in red licorice twizzler -> more starburst candies (razzle-dazzle berry) -> tannins lurking in recesses now emerge to foreground, 1st w/ pecan, then easy walnut -> exceedingly well-tempered petrified wood - fab moment - leading to even better one -> BANG chocolate BANG taking on fruits -> juices out to chocolate raspberry -> growing to fine acid/bitter simmer w/ herbal dimension in the shaft (grass)... steady thru long mocha finish

Nose an underachiever-deceiver; tongue expands off it... exponentially. A fine blend: terrific length, sequential balance, & component control pushing the roasting needle about as far as it should go to compensate for medium conche preserving all those sparkling subacids while boosting baseline chocolate flavor flags... all nicely unified by vanilla. Somewhat austere structure, perhaps a necessary evil to maintain profile (too much butter would suppress that fruit salad with more ripe reds than Scharffen Berger's dreams).

Reviewed 6/20/09