Depetris Riccardo

Depetris Riccardo - Cioccolato Del Monviso with Genepy

75 g Dark Chocolate
Regular price ¥1,900 JPY
Sale price ¥1,900 JPY Regular price
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Ranked in the Top 100 Chocolates in the World.

Origin & Craftsmanship

This bar is part of Depetris Riccardo / Depetris…i Ciculaté's Cioccolato del Monviso line, made in Revello, Piedmont at the foot of Mount Monviso — a UNESCO World Heritage site and the defining landmark of the Po Valley. The Genepy bar is built around a multi-stage infusion process: alpine Genepy flowers, grown in the Valle Po directly below the mountain, are used to aromatise the cacao through natural infusion and flavouring techniques. Even the grinding is tied to the mountain — Depetris has modified his production machinery to use Monviso stone as the milling surface, making the terroir connection between cacao and landscape a literal one.

Flavor Profile

Genepy is an aromatic alpine herb with a long tradition in Piedmontese and Valdostan liqueur-making — bitter, herbal, and distinctly high-altitude in character. Here it works in tension with the chocolate base: expect the warmth and depth of dark cacao underpinned by cool, herbaceous, slightly floral notes. The result reads as both grounded and elevated — a bar that tastes unmistakably of where it was made.

Award & Recognition

The Monviso Genepy earned a Special Prize for Infusion in Genepy Liqueur at the 2025 International Chocolate Awards (European Bean-to-Bar Competition), recognising both the technical precision of the infusion and the integrity of the locally sourced ingredient.

Tasting & Pairing Guide

Serve slightly below room temperature to keep the herbal notes crisp. The Genepy character pairs naturally with a small glass of aged Barolo or Nebbiolo — both share the same alpine-Piedmontese DNA. For a non-alcoholic match, a pine needle or mountain herb tea echoes the elevation without competing. For a food pairing, aged Toma Piemontese cheese or dark rye crackers with honey bridge the bitter and the sweet without overwhelming the herb.

Summary

The Monviso Genepy is a bar about place — specifically, the alpine landscape that rises above the Po Valley and defines the Piedmontese identity. With locally grown Genepy flowers infused directly into the cacao and Monviso stone used in the grinding process, it is as close as chocolate gets to a single-terroir expression. Award-recognised, technically demanding, and unlike anything outside the shadow of that mountain.

Vegan, Dairy-free

Riccardo Depetris grew up inside a pastry workshop — his parents have been operating in confectionery in the Cuneo province of Piedmont for over four decades. That apprenticeship never really ended. He trained formally at hotel school, then spent years travelling through France, Spain, Germany and the United States absorbing new markets, techniques and flavour sensibilities before returning to Revello to run the historic Pasticceria Del Viale — Depetris i Ciculaté with his brother Mario.
Riccardo's craft is rooted in Piedmontese tradition: the region's famed hazelnuts, the peaches of Revello, the local herbs and mountain fruits that grow at the foot of Monviso. But his approach is anything but backward-looking. He was among the first Italian chocolatiers to work bean-to-bar at an artisan scale, believing that handcrafted processing at each stage best preserves the organoleptic character of exceptional cacao.
The Cioccolato del Monviso line was born out of a long research project — a tribute to Mount Monviso, the solitary limestone peak that rises above the Po Valley and is the defining symbol of Piedmont. Each bar in the range is a dialogue between the mountain's altitude and geography and the tropical origins of cacao.
The Viola Mirtillo — with its hand-picked local violets and wild blueberries — is that dialogue at its most precise: an entire alpine landscape, compressed into a single bar.
Riccardo is also a teacher at ICIF and multiple hotel institutes across Piedmont, a technical consultant to chocolate machinery manufacturer Selmi, and a multi-awarded competitor at the International Chocolate Awards, where his work has accumulated gold, silver and bronze medals across more than a decade of competition.

Cocoa beans, sugar, cocoa butter, alpine Genepy flowers.

Our chocolate makers proudly refrain from using any artificial stabilizers or preservatives in their products, making their creations more temperature-sensitive compared to other premium chocolates.

To ensure the optimal taste experience, it's advisable to store our chocolates in a cool, dry place where the temperature hovers between 16°C and 18°C. Please refrain from refrigerating our chocolates, as this may cause sugar crystallization due to increased humidity, altering their texture and flavor.

On the contrary, if stored in excessively high temperatures, cocoa butter may separate and form a white film on the chocolate's surface. This loss of cocoa butter can lead to the chocolate drying out and, consequently, a potential alteration in flavor. Your mindful storage practices will help preserve the integrity of our delectable chocolates.