Perugina Baci: Nocciole intere

Product name: Perugina Baci: Nocciole intere
Purchase details: £0.99 for a 150g bar (99p Stores)
Calories: 124 per 21.4g piece
Country of origin: Italy 

When I was 10 years old, I went on my first trip abroad. I’ve got fond memories of that family holiday in Italy and one thing I’ve never forgotten is a particular brand of little chocolates that came in midnight blue packaging and, within their foil wrappers, had little notes written in Italian – they seemed a bit like fortune cookies at the time. However, what I never have remembered is their name. That changed when I saw this bar of Perugina Baci: Nocciole intere recently – I knew instantly that I’d found something by the same brand and I just had to take a trip down memory lane.

Having checked out Perugina's website, I now know the pieces of paper were love notes, and since Google told me ‘Baci’ means ‘kisses’, everything suddenly makes more sense! Although there were no additional bits of paper within this bar’s wrapper, there were various relationship-related quotes printed on the inside, so I didn’t feel like I’d missed out.

I found out from Google that ‘Nicciole intere’ translates as ‘whole hazelnuts’ and, with the product description given as ‘milk chocolate and gianduja hazelnut milk chocolate with hazelnuts’, I couldn’t wait to tuck into one of my favourite flavour combinations. According to trusty Wikipedia, gianduja is a chocolate spread that consists of around 30% hazelnut paste. In my head, I was thinking ‘Nutella’, so it all seemed very exciting.

My nose was soon greeted with a relatively strong scent that was equally chocolatey and hazelnutty with a subtle sweetness thrown in for good measure.

The bar was split into seven oblong segments that featured the brand name. The whole hazelnuts (8%) were visible through both sides of the slab and the chopped hazelnuts (3.7%) were also noticeable throughout. In addition, the chocolate’s surface contained lots of darker flecks which looked a lot like vanilla but there was no mention of this on the ingredients list. The bar was also clearly split into two – the darker base appeared to be the gianduja layer whilst the paler upper layer was standard chocolate.

This Baci: Nocciole intere had quite a strong taste of rich cocoa and plenty of hazelnut. I was right to expect a Nutella-like flavour but it wasn’t as sweet and felt a lot more sophisticated. The texture contributed to this too since it didn’t have a praline feel to it but it wasn’t completely chunky either – it was solid but with a softer chew than most chocolate bars. The well-dispersed nuts provided a great crunch and, when melting slowly, only the whole nuts interfered – the chopped ones didn’t get in the way at all!

Due to the heavy weight of this bar, the pieces were of a pleasing size that were full of flavour. A serving may only have been one piece but this didn’t feel stingy at all...although I won’t deny I could have happily and easily eaten more at once! I just hope I won’t have to wait such a long time again before I get my hands on another Perugina product.

Appearance: 8/10
Aroma: 7.5/10
Taste: 8/10
Texture: 7.5/10
Overall score: 7.75/10