Chocolate Gourmets Say It With Spice

Ancho chili or chevre with your chocolate? The idea may be hard to swallow but the chocolate isn't -- that is, if you stop thinking about chocolate as flavored sugar and consider it as food, travelogue or even conversation piece.

Artisanal chocolatiers are spreading love this Valentine's Day with assortments from exotic confections infused with cardamom or pasilla chili to a twist on the traditional champagne truffle.

Like fine wine, a Speyside single-malt or a cup of Kona, success has become a careful amalgamation of ingredients -- here, of blend, cocoa bean and machine. Ultimately it all comes down to taste, says Clay Gordon, chocolate critic and founder of Chocophile.com. "If you like the way it tastes, it's good chocolate," he says. Gordon's advice: Never give a piece of chocolate you haven't tasted yourself. ...