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Single-Origin Chocolate Maker Talks Bean-to-Bar

Single-Origin Chocolates at Castronovo Chocolate
Castronovo Chocolate
Single-Origin Chocolates at Castronovo Chocolate

Denise Castronovo is a producer of chocolate who contracts with small growers for precise cocoa beans, which she then crafts into award winning chocolate.  Her factory is in Stuart Florida, but she’s coming to Southwest Florida for a sold-out presentation at The Wine Store in Naples (in the interest of full disclosure, the Wine Store is a WGCU underwriter), but today we get a preview of that discussion to learn about bean-to-bar, single origin, sustainable chocolate.

Castronovo Chocolate has won numerous international awards for its small-batch artisanal chocolate. In 2016, Castronovo won six of the 25 gold, silver, and bronze awards given at the World Finals of the International Chocolate Awards.

At the Academy of Chocolate Awards last year, Castronovo also took six of the top awards for best dark chocolate bean-to-bar under 80%.

Copyright 2019 WGCU

Julie Glenn is the host of Gulf Coast Live. She has been working in southwest Florida as a freelance writer since 2007, most recently as a regular columnist for the Naples Daily News. She began her broadcasting career in 1993 as a reporter/anchor/producer for a local CBS affiliate in Quincy, Illinois. After also working for the NBC affiliate, she decided to move to Parma, Italy where she earned her Master’s degree in communication from the University of Gastronomic Sciences. Her undergraduate degree in Mass Communication is from the University of Missouri at Kansas City.