Celebrating its third anniversary, the 2012 Fall Luxury Chocolate Salon at Fort Mason Center in San Francisco presented an impressive list of international chocolate makers tirelessly improving their sweet, bittersweet, and otherwise fabulously flavored product. A brain child of TasteTV, the International Chocolate Salon became a staple in the city’s holiday season’s tradition of gourmet events that inevitably lead to some delicious gift-giving. It is easy to eliminate even a remote possibility of a hideous seasonal malady known as re-gifting by treating your loved ones to a box of artisanal chocolates.
As a Fall Chocolate Salon [honorable?] judge, I’d like to share some recommendations that might make your seasonal gifting agony go away. Enjoy an endless bliss of picking and choosing among the many sure-to-please options.
CocoTutti, awarded a gold medal for best traditional chocolates, fills its delectable truffles with homemade raspberry jam, homemade peanut butter, and other made from scratch ingredients, like liquid citrus caramel and orange confit. 
La Chatelaine Chocolat Co. (gold for best presentation and packaging) surely fills that packaging with too many splendored things to name them all. Suffice it to say: Nipple of Venus (coffee infused ganache dipped in white chocolate and topped with chocolate coffee bean, and Desire (raspberry puree, Amarillo chili, and cinnamon in dark chocolate. 
Feve Artisan Chocolatier (formerly Au Coeur Des Chocolats) got several gold medals – for most artistic designs, for best gift sets, for most luxurious chocolate experience, and for best presentation and packaging. 
Toffee Talk (gold for top toffee and for best comfort chocolate or snack product) included in its stellar toffee and nut collection a rare red walnut that grows in the Bay Area and makes for a festive holiday treat. 
Kallari Chocolate (gold for best organic or fair trade products) is true to its motto, “Sustainable pleasure for palate and planet.” Kallari (means “rising sun”) organic dark chocolate bars are made of sustainably grown Criollo, Trinitario, Venezuelan, Amelonado and Blonde cacao beans in Ecuador. 
Marti Chocolatt with its several gold medals – for best truffle, for most delicious ingredient combinations, for best in salon, and for most gifted chocolatier/chocolate maker – impressed me the most with its tropical fruit flavored truffles, like durian, pineapple, and mango. 
Socola Chocolatier (gold for top artisan chocolatier, for best flavored chocolate, for best in salon, and for new product award) has a new Holiday Collection 2012 of Hazelnut Praline, Fresh Mint, Pecan Toffee, and Champagne.
Sixth Course Artisan Confections (gold for best in salon and for best caramels) uses local ingredients in creative caramels that include Rosemary, Smoked Salt, Chai Tea, and Sage & Brown Butter. 
Jade Chocolates (gold for best flavored chocolate bar) has a new product – Green Mango Tiles, which recently received a 3rd place in the sweet heat category of the Scovie Awards (world's largest spicy food competition).
Saratoga Chocolates continues to awe the international chocolate lovers’ community way beyond its native city of Saratoga, California, with tea-, coffee-, rum-, and port-infused delicate truffles and creative chocolate bars. 
Clarine’s Florentines spreads the joy of the season with its caramel and almond treats.
New Chocolate Salon presenter this year, Rachel Dunn Chocolates, does not disappoint with chocolate-and-nuts dipped giant Washington apples. Other Salon participants who presented outstanding and award-winning chocolates, toffees, chocolate-dipped pop corn, and even jerky and pickles (to alleviate the effects of excessive sweetness) were: Amano Artisan Chocolate; Be A Gourmet; Butterfly Brittle; Jerk’NPickle; Plumeria Flours; Smitten: Artisan Truffles; Snake & Butterfly; Quail Point Chocolates; The TeaRoom Chocolate Co., and Toffeeology.
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