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There has never been a more complicated time to be a chocoholic.

These days, chocolate is no longer just an addictive dessert or a mid-afternoon pick-me-up - it's another luxury to be tasted technically, its complexities savoured, its provenance pinpointed.

And the 1980s "death by chocolate" experience is being replaced by something far more sophisticated: the formal chocolate tasting bar. Chicago's new tasting bar, ENO, serves flights of wine, cheese and chocolate. In New York, Chocolat Michel Cluizel has a sommelier and offers a range of programs, from an introductory tasting to a two-hour pairing of chocolates with wines and spirits.

In Calgary, Rebekah Pearse of Nectar Desserts offers scotch and chocolate tastings for women only.

In the slow-food capital of Turin, Italy, Guido Gobino's new "extreme chocolate tasting room" may well be the most decadent spot to engage in this sensual pursuit. After marvelling at the chocolates in his historic storefront, you can sniff the many aromas of chocolate from tall acrylic tubes in the educational area, then slip downstairs to his private enclave.

Created for special tastings, the cocoon-like cave is designed to eliminate distractions and enhance the gastronomic experience, he says. The moment someone sits on the round, lavender leather sofa, the translucent floor is bathed in fuchsia light and an oversized digital clock, projected on the smooth white walls, stops.

"Time stands still - nothing to worry about, just focus on the chocolate," Mr. Gobino says, guiding us through a sampling of his intensely flavoured miniatures, dark chocolate with Thai ginger and Sicilian Noto lemon or infused with Sardinian saffron, the bitter 80-per-cent-cacao chocolate enhanced with grains of Arriba cocoa from Ecuador.

For Ms. Pearse, chocolate and single-malt Scotch whisky is a match made in heaven, so chocolate and Scotch tasting tutorials are regular events at Nectar, in Calgary's Inglewood district.

"Chocolate is a food that - like wine or like cheese - reflects the terroir," Ms. Pearse says, "and there is such diversity of flavour, one style to the other."

Ms. Pearse walks through the finer points of tasting her favourite Valrhona Grand Cru chocolate, detailing chocolate history and provenance, and describing how a 70-per-cent Guanaja chocolate bar, with its intense bitter notes, might stand up to a smoky Islay malt, while a fruitier Valrhona Manjari from Madagascar, with only 64 per cent cocoa mass, might work better with a lighter, fruitier whisky.

"The difference between the crus is so extreme," she says, "and with Scotch, there are all of those vanilla, caramel and even salty notes that go so well with chocolate."

At her events, participants scribble notes, and she addresses ethical issues related to the cocoa bean business. But despite the growing trend toward "single origin" chocolate - from specific countries or single plantations - Ms. Pearse says it's difficult to quantify chocolate from any particular region.

"There's really not enough uniformity yet in the chocolate world - chocolate still depends so much on the maker, the blender and the house style of the producer," she says.

The tasting bug has also bitten Calgary-based Bernard Callebaut. To celebrate his 25th anniversary in business, Mr. Callebaut designed four new tasting chocolates - each with the same chocolate filling, but encased in a different single plantation chocolate, from the Los Palmaritos plantation of the Dominican Republic, Maralumi in Papua New Guinea and Mangaro in Madagascar.

Mr. Callebaut, who makes Belgian-style chocolates by hand in Calgary for more than 30 stores across Canada and the United States, has begun travelling the world in search of single-origin chocolate, working with Mr. Cluizel, a pioneer in the world of "1er cru" plantation chocolate.

"This is very new in the chocolate world, and France is the only country with laws governing this," says Mr. Callebaut of the issue of traceability in the cocoa bean-to-chocolate chain.

Still, mass market chocolatiers are also raising their bar. Richart offers "tasting collections," while Scharffen Berger makes a tasting gift box, with 16 pieces of its four most popular blends. Even candy giant Nestlé offers a Nestlé Noir line of high-cocoa bars, including chocolate from West Africa and Ecuador.

Naturally, there's a certain snob factor in choosing the best. Thomas Haas in Vancouver has created a new line of chocolate bars that are simply labelled 37 Creamy, 61 Smooth, 67 Wild, 73 Crunchy, 79 Intense and 83 Bold. The "taste profiles" read like wine-tasting notes: "fruity and smooth with hints of passion fruit" or "fragrant nuances of banana and mango." The bars are also labelled with the type and origin of the cocoa beans, from trinitario beans from Ghana to wild harvest criollo and trinitario beans from Bolivia. But taste is still the overriding issue for Mr. Haas.

"There is such a steep incline in dark chocolate connoisseurs," Mr. Haas says, "but I never jumped on the single-origin wagon - I'm just interested in making it taste good."

Like Mr. Haas, Mr. Gobino is perfectly serious about the flavour nuances in his chocolate creations, but when you are lounging on lavender leather with a mouthful of chocolate melting on your tongue, the hedonism of tasting chocolate still trumps the back story.

"There is tradition and there is passion," Mr. Gobino muses as his staff quietly circulates with cups of espresso, mineral water and tea to cleanse palates between bites. "These are conversation chocolates, to think about and talk about."

Special to The Globe and Mail

Chocolate tasting 101

Candy giant Nestlé, which offers a line of high-cocoa bars, including chocolate from West Africa and Ecuador, recommends tasting chocolate blindfolded. But before you do, look at the chocolate - it should be smooth and shiny with even texture and gloss. If it's not, it might be old or poorly tempered.

Break off a piece: A clear snap and a clean break indicates well-tempered chocolate with a high cacao content. Dark chocolate should never crumble or bend.

Rub the piece between your fingers to release the oils and take in the intense cocoa aroma. Aromas can vary depending on the growing conditions, and there are hundreds of aromas to search for in a piece of chocolate, from strawberries and cream to spice and cedar.

Bite into the piece, think about the consistency, then let the chocolate melt on your tongue for 20 seconds, covering your palate and filling your mouth. Resist the temptation to chew. It's the mouth feel you're evaluating - smooth is good, grainy or gritty is not. If it's waxy or greasy, it's a sign of a lower-grade product - vegetable shortening may have been added instead of pure cocoa butter.

Now chew to evaluate the texture. Think about the taste - both the initial flavours, the mid-palate taste and the aftertaste.

Remove the blindfold, cleanse your palate (with water or bread) and repeat with the next sample. It's easiest to spot differences if you taste lowest-cacao-content chocolates first, and move up to the more bitter, high-cacao chocolate, or to compare chocolates with similar cacao content.

Cinda Chavich