I've written about Lindt Excellence before—specifically, the Lindt Excellence Intense Orange— but this particular bar, while not actually new, was one I've not seen before. Lindt's Excellence A Touch of Sea-Salt is part of the Lindt Excellence range of dark chocolates with various ingredients added for flavor. It's one of their standard 3.5 ounce, 100 grams bars of dark chocolate, with French Fleur de Sel crystals of sea-salt. It caught my eye in part because it immediately made me think of dark chocolate sea-salt caramels, which are a fabulous combination of flavors. It's almost February, and so the local chain stores are all stocking up on chocolates at sale prices; this bar was part of a range of Lindt bars at 2 for $3.00.

The chocolate is dark, but barely in the bitter sweet range; it wants, badly, to melt. But it's dark enough, and the sea-salt works marvelously well as a flavor, enhancing the chocolate. The salt is in the chocolate, in tiny crystals, just enough to notice, but not anything like over power the silky rich barely bitter sweet chocolate. Lindt's nutritional information describes a bar as about 2.5 servings, with a serving being four squares of chocolate and the sodium per serving is a mere 55mg, or 2% of the RDV. I tried a square on its own and loved it, which inspired me to dry a square with a glass of merlot, and that was just fabulous.

Lindt is not, by the way, the only chocolatier offering sea-salt enhanced chocolate bars. I note that Astor chocolates also has sea-salt chocolate bars. For the curious, I note that Fleur de sel salt is very specially hand-harvested sea salt; it's best known from France, where salt farmers on the coast of Brittany and those near the Camargue wait for the two or three clear summer days without wind. On those days the salt is less likely to sink, and can be scraped off the surface of the shallow salt ponds. Most sea salt is harvested after it has been allowed to sink, and acquire impurities; it's sold as Sel Gris, or "gray salt." Fleur de sel is slightly sweeter in tast, noticeably lighter in color, and tends to form delicate crystalline lumps. It sells for about $25.00 a pound, or more, and is widely regarded as one of the finest quality salts available; traditionally, it's said to be call Sel de Fleur or "flower salt" because it's scent is slightly sweet and reminiscent of the sea.