Italians seek to seduce gourmet chocolate fans

By Mathias Wildt

MILAN (Reuters) - "Nine out of ten people say they love chocolate. The tenth is lying," said Guido Gobino, 47, in his lab in Turin, northwestern Italy, as automated machinery stamped and wrapped his Tourinot chocolates in silver foil.

Made only with cocoa, sugar, vanilla and hazelnuts, they melt on the tongue, releasing a bouquet of chocolate velvet.

High-end chocolatiers like Gobino are making the most of mounting global appetites for gourmet chocolate, and leading a rise in demand for Italian-made brands.

Not widely associated with chocolate, the Italians nonetheless have won top prizes and claim a long history in the indulgence, saying they even taught the Swiss some core skills.

Worldwide gourmet chocolate sales should reach $1.62 billion (822 million pounds) in 2008, consultant Judith Ganes-Chase said last month. And Italian consumption has doubled in the last decade to 4.5 kg per head, though it still lags the European average of 7.5 kg.

"Chocolate exploded in the last year," said Davide Pogliani, who has added a room just to sell chocolates in his fine wine and food store in Milan. "We sell mostly Amedei -- considered the best in the world -- and Gobino."

Based in Pontedera, near Pisa, Amedei won a gold medal for best in the world in 2005 and 2006 from London's Academy of Chocolate.

Cecilia Tessieri, 39, and her brother Alessio, 42, who founded Amedei in 1989, took their search for the best ingredients to the ultimate conclusion and are the only Italian chocolatiers who run their own cocoa plantation in Venezuela.