Belgian chocolate and French sparkling seem like a decadent combination - usually enjoyed separately.
But that was before Chocolate in a Bottle landed on Australian shores. In what is described as a unique experience, the infused French sparkling captures the flavour and aroma of the chocolate without compromising the wine.
It may seem like a novel idea, but while this Canberra-born couple is bringing it to Australia for the first time, Chocolate in a Bottle has been in Europe for the past 10 years.
It was there - while on a trip to celebrate their 30th wedding anniversary - that Lisa and Andrew Brooke discovered it. Having both worked in the hospitality industry in the capital and elsewhere, as well as various other industries, they were on the lookout for their next venture when they discovered the wine.
"We were really quite amazed by it and kept looking for it in places because we were like that really resonated with us," Lisa Brooke says.
"So we got in contact with them and got them to send us some because we wanted to make sure we did love it. Because we wanted to make sure it wasn't just some sort of holiday romantic idea, but it was really good.
"We started sharing it with friends and family, and other people and the majority of people really were surprised and delighted with it. So we said, 'Yep, let's do this'."
Chocolate in a Bottle is the brainchild of Tom De Bruyn, the Flemish sommelier who blended Belgian chocolate with French blanc de blanc.
Collaborating for more than a year with a French winemaker near Perpignan, they meticulously crafted the distinctive beverage using the essence of the chocolate as well as hazelnut extract.
When it comes to the wine side of things, the grapes are from vineyards with sandy and slate terroir before undergoing the same vinification process that's used in the Champagne region.
"Most people when they hear Chocolate in a Bottle, they think straight away that it's a dessert wine but it is actually a very versatile wine," Lisa Brooke says.
"If you think about the whole sweet and salty or sweet and savoury type of thing with cooking, it's no different when you're pairing wine.
"It goes just as easy at the start of a meal with charcuterie boards, cheeses, oysters, seafood, scallops, and things like that. It goes just as well with those sorts of things as it does at the end of the meal with a piece of cake or a mille-feuille or a bowl of strawberries."
Flavour-wise, Chocolate in a Bottle has three distinct sips. The first is chocolate dominant due to the wine's strong aroma - it's almost like smelling cocoa-dusted truffles.
"Predominantly, the first taste, you would definitely taste the chocolate because your brain smells the chocolate, recognizes it and so when your palate tastes it's like, OK, that's chocolate," Lisa Brooke says.
The flavour of the fruit in the wine - which is predominately a chardonnay grape - starts to come through in the second sip. And finally, the third sip - and the rest of the wine - the flavour of the wine's fruit settles on the front of the palette while the chocolate notes settle on the back.
"A lot of people think it's going to be creamy, but it doesn't. The chocolate sort of coats your mouth, but the wine still keeps the one fresh," Lisa Brooke says.
The Canberra stockists for Chocolate in a Bottle include Prohibition Bottle Shop, Plonk Beer & Wine Store, Strange Alchemy Unit and Liquor Legends in Woden, Hawker and Charnwood.
