Castronovo Chocolate
Sierra Nevada Colombia Dark Milk 63%
A dark milk built on cacao from the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, grown in partnership with Arhuaco communities on the world's highest coastal mountain range. Dark milk is the category where origin character most often disappears under dairy — this bar is the counter-example, and the 2024 ICA Americas gold reflects that.
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- Maker
- Castronovo Chocolate · United States
- Type
- dark milk
- Cacao
- 63%
- Status
- draft
Dark milk is the hardest category in which to taste origin. Milk solids and sugar are generous to a bar's faults, but they are equally generous to its distinctions, and most dark milks end up tasting like the recipe rather than like the cacao. That is why a dark milk winning gold against dark bars is worth noticing.
The mountain
The Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta is the highest coastal mountain range in the world, rising from the Caribbean to snow in under fifty kilometres. Cacao grows on its lower slopes, and the range's compressed altitude gradient means that a short walk changes the growing conditions more than a long journey would almost anywhere else.
The cacao here is grown in partnership with Arhuaco communities. The Arhuaco are one of four Indigenous peoples descended from the Tairona who hold the Sierra Nevada as sacred ground, and their agricultural practice long predates the cacao trade that now runs through it. Our archive record for this origin carries the coordinates, elevation band, and genetic assignment.
Why this bar is on the list
Castronovo's Sierra Nevada Dark Milk 63% took gold at the International Chocolate Awards Americas (USA / Canada) competition in 2024, and the maker's cabinet also holds a Golden Bean Award and an ICA World Finals gold. Denise Castronovo was named Top Chocolate Maker, Americas Division, in 2024.
Sixty-three per cent is high for a milk chocolate — high enough that the cacao is still the loudest thing in the bar. If you are trying to learn to taste Colombian cacao and find high-percentage dark bars punishing, this is the gentler route to the same information.
What we have not done
The Open Cacao Index editorial team has not tasted this bar. The descriptors on this page derive from the competition citation, not from our own tasting, and are labelled accordingly. This record carries status draft.
Sources
- Castronovo Chocolate 2026, 'Awards' — https://www.castronovochocolate.com/pages/awards
- International Chocolate Awards 2024, 'Americas USA/Canada Bean-to-Bar and Craft Chocolatier Competition Winners' — https://enter.chocolateawards.com/competitions/americas/americas-usa-canada-bean-to-bar-and-craft-chocolatier-competition-2024-winners/