Chardonnay White Wine and Gold Chocolate Ice Cream by Chateraise

Châteraisé has a number of well-curated cutting edge ice cream flavours. On a recent visit, I discovered this white wine ice cream and had to try. The wine is apparently made in their in-house winery too. Apart from Chardonnay white wine, it also contains Belgian gold chocolate.

The obvious first question is whether it contains any alcohol. It turns out that it does, indeed, so there is a warning printed at the bottom (shown in the image below) stating that it contains about 0.9% alcohol, so children and those intolerant to alcohol should avoid it.

Visually it was nothing spectacular. But taste-wise, it packs a punch.

There was a prominent Muscatine white wine taste complete with slight warmth of alcohol. It was sweet like a sherry, with a very slight balanced tinge of sourness, like some wines that have a hint of grape-like sourness, but not in a bad way. 

The complex winey taste blends with the milk and cream very well in an interesting way, like how frozen yoghurt blends its fermented taste with the milk. Imagine a less sweet, less sour, mild frozen yoghurt, with a tinge of Muscat grape flavor and alcohol. 

I did not notice any distinct gold chocolate taste. Apparently, gold chocolate is supposed to have a slight caramel or toffee taste, but there didn't seem to be any of that. Nonetheless, as you can see in the ingredients list, the chocolate is the first ingredient in place of the usual cream, so it could have helped to make it especially creamy and smooth, and to blend the overall taste to be rounder with more umami. (Click the photo to enlarge.)

It's definitely one of the better curated interesting ice cream flavours in my opinion, and would recommend trying it if you pass by a Châteraisé outlet. They have been expanding internationally, so besides Japan, you can also find them in United Arab Emirates, Vietnam, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Hong Kong and Indonesia. This is their official website where I found the countries they are in.

Check out other interesting ice creams:

• [also by Chateraise] Kuromitsu Kinako Soy Ice Cream by Chateraise
• Japanese Soy Sauce Ice Cream by Kamada Shoyu
• Japanese Red Snow Crab Ice Cream by Tomoda Sailing
• White Chocolate Nori Ice Cream by Tom's Palette
• Herbal Ginseng Ice Cream
• Taiyaki Parfait
• McDonald's Red Velvet McFlurry

Discover other interesting snacks with wine:

• Ruskology 101 - Original Butter Rusk and Hors d'oeuvre Rusk Sommelier by Gateau Festa Harada
• XO Sauce Phoenix Cookies by Kee Wah
• Sweet Potato and Chestnut Tarts by Foucher