80 premium Marlborough wines, complemented by a range of artisan food products. Recently, the company decided to revamp its food and wine experience with its newest addition, The Chocolate Station.
With the aim of offering more than 100 different chocolates, Blenheim business is going for the perfect flavour combination of chocolate and wine. Most of the confectionery products are from New Zealand and other Pacific islands, while some of them are from further afield. Having the staff trained by a judge from the NZ Chocolate Awards, the team involved in the curation of products have gone to great lengths to ensure they deliver the ultimate chocolate and wine experience.
“Chocolate makers import the beans and then work with the beans themselves to make their own chocolate. Whereas chocolatiers will work with the ready-made chocolate,” The Chocolate Station director Kirsty Parry said. “Both are done in small batches, so they’re very small companies that create these beautiful products.”
She noted that the company decided to go with chocolate owing to the fact it was “crafty” and “artisan”, which were in line with The Wine Station’s vision. “Blenheim – the epicentre of the Marlborough wine region – is a fitting location for The Chocolate Station. There are many similarities between the worlds of chocolate and wine,” Parry said, adding that terms such as “flavours”, “terroir” and “single estate” were interchangeable between wine and chocolate.
“A quality artisan chocolate, like a good wine, comes with a range of flavour profiles to suit every palate,” she said. “It’s a second passion here, I guess you could say.”
