& he also has the exclusive rights to introduce the rarest (and most delicious) chocolate on the planet, Fortunato No.4, to the Australian market. Recently House of Anvers released the 2013 vintage of the rare Fortunato No. 4 chocolate & Ben was invited at the event. Ben also revealed that this chocolate is going to be one of the main ingredients on the menu of his upcoming restaurant.
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| Ben Milbourne with House of Anvers' Igor Van Gerwen |
Latrobe chocolate king Igor Van Gerwen prepares for Peruvian crusade to find rare cocoa beans--
Tasmanian chocolate maker Igor Van
Gerwen will ride into the Peruvian mountains on a donkey next month to
source more of the rare cocoa beans he crafts into the "holy grail'' of
chocolate.
That same chocolate will be one of the star ingredients on the menu
at celebrity chef Ben Milbourne's new restaurant venture in Port
Sorell, which will open this spring.Mr Van Gerwen has been making Fortunato No.4 dark chocolate from the rare Pure Cirollo: Pure Nacional bean since 2012.
Together with a couple of chefs from New York, he will venture into the high-altitude cocoa-growing area of Peru in March to help harvest, extract, sort, ferment and roast more beans to create another batch of what is fast becoming Anver's signature chocolate.
Mr Van Gerwen could not say where he was heading because he has signed a confidentiality agreement to protect the secret location of the trees.
"I do not know where I am going exactly, but I do know I will be riding a donkey into the hills to help trial roast the 2014 harvest to make next year's chocolate,'' he said.
"This cocoa variety grew in the wild 100 years ago but a virus then wiped it out.
"However, 23 plants were found to still be growing in a small valley at high altitude in 2007." Farmers are now being encouraged to grow the variety and the harvests are getting bigger.
"It is well worth the effort it takes to bring it to Tasmania,'' Mr Van Gerwen said.
Mr Milbourne, who lives at Shearwater on the state's North-West Coast, hopes to open his One Degree restaurant at Ghost Rock Vineyard near Port Sorell later this year.
And Anver's Fortunato No.4 dark chocolate - believed to be the rarest chocolate in the world - will be on the menu.
He today displayed the dessert he has created using whisky-poached apricots, vanilla cream and Fortunato No.4.
The Masterchef contestant is now working on other ways of incorporating the dark chocolate into his dishes.
"The chocolate has a great snap and crunch,'' Mr Milbourne said at Anver's Latrobe factory.
"It has a good acid line, which cuts through the cream and stops it being sickly.''
(Source: The Mercury, February 6, 2014)
Here's an article Ben wrote about Fortunato No. 4, world's rarest chocolate:
Our Own Willy Wonka
Earlier this week Igor Van Gerwan (Tasmania’s own Willy Wonka) released
the 2013 vintage of the rare Fortunato No 4 Chocolate. The chocolate is
amongst the rarest and most expensive in the world
The 2013 vintage continues to display the 2012 Fortunato No 4 Characteristics, it has a good clean snap and gloss with fruit aromas and a very, very long lingering dark roasted nut accents. The most noticeable characteristic is the low bitterness and the long acid line (not quite as intense as last years), which makes it a very powerful complex chocolate like no other. Because this is a single origin chocolate it will change from vintage to vintage (year to year like wine). When you work with something that rellies on mother nature the flavour has the ability to change from year to year as the trees mature, the weather changes and the environment develops.
In March Igor will be heading to Peru for the 2014 Fortunato No 4 harvest season. After signing a confidentiality agreement to protect the secret location of the Fortunato No 4 trees, Igor will be one of the lucky few to visit the original 24 trees that are the mother trees of the current crops. Igor will be visiting the nurseries and will be involved in the Harvesting, Fermenting and Roasting of the 2014 Harvest. He will be living and working with the farmers, including Don Fortunato, the farmer responsible for the preservation on the world’s oldest cacao variety. I will be in contact with Igor while he is away on this once in a lifetime trip and keep you all up to date with how he is going.
Recipe 1 is a little more complicated than the other 2 I have come up with for this vintage of Fortunato No 4. The second 2 recipes are how I would normally enjoy this chocolate, it is so good on its own that it just need to be enjoyed with a coffee or a whisky.
The 2013 vintage continues to display the 2012 Fortunato No 4 Characteristics, it has a good clean snap and gloss with fruit aromas and a very, very long lingering dark roasted nut accents. The most noticeable characteristic is the low bitterness and the long acid line (not quite as intense as last years), which makes it a very powerful complex chocolate like no other. Because this is a single origin chocolate it will change from vintage to vintage (year to year like wine). When you work with something that rellies on mother nature the flavour has the ability to change from year to year as the trees mature, the weather changes and the environment develops.
In March Igor will be heading to Peru for the 2014 Fortunato No 4 harvest season. After signing a confidentiality agreement to protect the secret location of the Fortunato No 4 trees, Igor will be one of the lucky few to visit the original 24 trees that are the mother trees of the current crops. Igor will be visiting the nurseries and will be involved in the Harvesting, Fermenting and Roasting of the 2014 Harvest. He will be living and working with the farmers, including Don Fortunato, the farmer responsible for the preservation on the world’s oldest cacao variety. I will be in contact with Igor while he is away on this once in a lifetime trip and keep you all up to date with how he is going.
Recipe 1 is a little more complicated than the other 2 I have come up with for this vintage of Fortunato No 4. The second 2 recipes are how I would normally enjoy this chocolate, it is so good on its own that it just need to be enjoyed with a coffee or a whisky.
(Source: The Advocate)
