Good chocolate is much like good wine. Unless you have taste for some of these expensive chocolates, you either won't notice a difference or even often prefer

Good chocolate is much like good wine. Unless you have taste for some of these expensive chocolates, you either won't notice a difference or even often prefer the cheaper ones. The expense is in meeting a particular taste and texture profile, not in being universally "better" than anything else. Of course, like any luxury goods, there are plenty of expensive brands that aren't expensive for much reason other than that they are marketed to be glitzy and/or boutique. I typically like to eat single estate chocolate. Not that there aren't good blends (I even honestly like Hershey's as a nostalgia thing, though its too cloyingly sweet and full of flavor dulling diary product) but the variety you can get from single estates is noticeable. You can explore lots of different variations within the kinds of flavors you enjoy, and weed out the flavor profiles you don't like as much. I prefer leather and tobacco flavors, my wife prefers fruity, brighter flavors. Lots and lots of small single estate chocolates to explore in both those areas, and even some of them with multiple chocolateers giving their own directions from the same raw chocolate.