70% DR Zorzal - Organic

Direct trade. Charles Kerchner is a consulting forester who worked in the Dominican Republic in the Peace Corps. He fell in love with the landscape, and at the time also fell in love with cocoa. Working with partners and landowners in the DR, they formed a team that initiated the first private reserve in the Dominican Republic, as part of the National Protected Area System. Reserva Zorzal has become a model for private landowners to participate in landscape-level conservation.

It’s organic. Zorzal Cacao has a story that goes well beyond just being organic and direct trade. Reserva Zorzal has set aside 70% of its 1,019 acres as “forever wild”, devoted to the wintering grounds of Bicknell’s thrush, which of course benefits biodiversity and many other species. This rare and threatened bird breeds on remote mountaintops in the Northeastern United States. Seeing or hearing one is a rare treat even for experienced birders, and its habitat in dense hemlock forests makes even getting the chance of seeing one or hearing its nasal trill the thrill of a lifetime. It winters in the DR, where it is called the Zorzal de Bicknells, in the dense cloud forest, and because its habitat is shrinking both in its wintering grounds and breeding grounds, cooperative efforts between conservation organizations in the United States and the DR are forging real progress in maintaining populations of this rare songbird.

This year is yet another glorious fruit bomb.  It is a touch more restrained and elegant the previous years but still big and beautiful. The aroma is saturated with cherry and raspberry and a sweetness that is on the verge of cloying.  It makes me think of Magnolia.  It is mouth-wateringly intense.  It is big and bold but also very well rounded and not sharp at all.

 

Pairs well with Plantains, red wine, caramelized anything, sugar cookies, seafoam, baseball,