Girl Grape Power

You know you're at the right event when you overhear other folks discussing compound butters. That's just one small way to suggest what a big event--part of an even bigger event--can embody. For the 2024 Women Winemakers and Culinarians Celebration that just occurred March 6-10, with a Grand Tasting on March 9 at boutique vineyard event space 27 Vines in Santa Ynez, was, as usual, an incredible community treasure. International Women's Day has no better home than Santa Barbara. 

Winemaker for Seagrape Karen Steinwachs (in the middle of the photo above, with chef Brooke Stockwell on the left and County Supervisor Joan Hartmann on the right--of the photo, that is), one of the events founders and organizers, let on, "There are 250 guests but 70 of us winemakers and culinarians." That's a 3.57 "faculty-student" ratio that you'd be amazed to find at even the toniest of prep schools. But in this case the "faculty" makes much of the best wine and food Santa Barbara County has to offer. There's a belief that SB has the highest ratio of women winemakers, one of those stats that makes sense when you look at photos like the one that leads this post, but is hard to prove definitively (like, if Cole Ranch, which is an AVA that's a single vineyard, was owned by a woman, that would be 100%...). Most importantly, the fest exists to give back to the community, and this year's beneficiary was She Raised Her Hand, which provides opportunities for 2 million women veterans to find community, purpose, and strength.

One of the tricky things writing about this event is that it's spectacular annually, so coming up with witty insights about it gets harder and harder. Last year I thrilled to find two of our county's best winemakers, period, Angela Osborne of A Tribute to Grace and Jessica Gasca of Story of Soil sharing a table--well, look at that photo above from this year. Once again both poured stunning wines--Osborne offering brand new releases from large format bottles--we all need to be talking about her Grenache Blanc more, you know--while Gasca's just disgorged 2023 Pet Nat made from Gruner was a perfect working-on-being-spring afternoon quencher. Hooray for brand new releases that confirm our region's deliciousness.

Speaking of deliciousness, there was plenty, like the scarfable ahi poke lettuce wraps from Erica Velasquez at Ramen Kotori. Heck, Joy Reinhardt from Ellie's Tap & Vine made me like bread pudding (usually not my favorite texture), by making sure the edges were crisped and crunchy. Brooke Stockwell from Los Olivos Cafe spoiled us with the unctuousness of butternut uni crostini. Jane Darrah from Good Witch Farm (what a perfect name for the event, no?) showered a chicken liver mousse crostini with gorgeous, delicious micro greens and edible flowers. 

While I didn't get enough photos of the food as I don't want to show pictures of me contentedly chewing, here's one of the view. The site was something, with plenty of space so things never felt crowded. We got to have lots of lovely conversations, which is part of the point of such an event. In particular a long chat with Sonja Magdevski--while tasting wonderful pours like her concrete egg-aged Roussanne and a wine cider that's 2/3 Mourvèdre Rosé and 1/3 pippin apples--is slowly phasing out the Casa Dumetz name so all her wines will be Clementine Carter. A scoop, of sorts.

In the news to me, you decide if it's a scoop to you category--SBC is truly rocking Gamay right now. The carbonic one above from Dreamcôte was beautiful, made whole cluster from Donnachadh Vineyard, Sta. Rita Hill's grapes that only winemaker Brit Zotovich, Ernst Storm, and the vineyard owners got to play with. Another Gamay winner comes from The Joy Fantastic, from Amy Christine and Peter Hunken's own SRH vineyard. I'd love to crack open bottles of each to taste side-by-side someday and drown in pomegranate and mineral goodness.

As for out and out new winery finds, I was most excited by another pair of table neighbors. I nicked the label image from the deeply pleasing Grenache from Cote of Paint to make clear they've got senses of both humor and marketing. Couple Kristin Harris Luis and Nick Luis both have connections with the ever-impressive Dragonette, so have learned from the best. Their creation story joke is, “We don’t want to change how wine is made, we just want to throw on a coat of paint,” but they paint deliciously. And they don't even fussily mess with the diacritical mark on the o in cote, which is mighty kind. Next to them was Amber Rose Wine, and Amber also honors a terrific mentor, in this case Pinot legend Ken Brown. Her 2018 Riverbench Vineyard SMV Pinot Noir is elegant yet speaks of the Santa Maria Valley with its salinity. Although a small operation, Amber Rose also insists on every employee being a woman in her business. Hard to beat that as a way to qualify for the occasion. 

And I wanted to end here, as it encapsulates the joy of the day. I'd laugh a lot, too, if I were as talented as Jessica Foster, who came up with the brilliant, sweet-salty bite: s'mores pecan bananas foster. Beyond the Foster/foster joke, I could have stood at this table all afternoon, gulping them down. Between lots of laughs.

Women Winemakers Wow at Community Celebration

Community is too often a bullshit word, cheaply thrown about to either make people work harder than they are getting paid to work feel better about their crummy jobs or to convince consumers what they're buying is somehow blessed with kindness and not just transactional.

And then there's the rare event like the Sixth Annual Women Winemakers Celebration held on Sunday, March 12 at Mattei's Tavern, Auberge Resorts Collection (that's not as bad as Francis Coppola's Bram Stoker's Dracula, at least). It really felt special, over 30 Santa Barbara county women winemakers, and 13 culinary participants, and women photographers and musicians and florists and press agents having fun, exhibiting terrific taste and talent, and welcoming all. Like magic the event even had blue skies in this sodden excuse for a Southern California winter that those of us who drove from the ocean side of the mountains figured was just more of the drizzly same.

In her moment before the attentive crowd co-organizer Karen Steinwachs of the terrific Seagrape Cellars said she was spurred into action by Patricia Arquette's call-to-arms Oscar speech in 2015 (this year's fest also happened to be on Oscars Day), and she realized "there are more women winemakers here than anywhere in the world--why not play that card?" Six years in Steinwachs and her team certainly have the play down perfectly, even if she jibed, "Trying to manage sold-out event is much more difficult than selling an event in the first place." 

That sell-out was capped at a number that meant plenty of room to move, especially in the gorgeous outdoor grounds at the back of Mattei's (although it's crucial us tall folks duck heading under the scenic, yet low-beamed, water tower). The food-to-drink mix was as smartly designed and thoughtfully ratio-ed as the Santa Barbara Food + Wine Festival at the Natural History Museum back in the days when the wise Meridith Moore ran that delightful event. (And not surprisingly, she was brought in to help organize this one this year.)

The community reached across winemaker generations, with longtime stalwarts like Kathy Joseph of Fiddlehead and Lane Tanner of Lumen pouring alongside names new to me (at least) like Anna Clifford of Final Girl Wines and Alice Anderson of âmevive. And then a long list of some of our regions best winemakers no matter gender: Alison Thomson of Lepiane, Jessica Gasca of Story of Soil, Angela Osborne of A Tribute to Grace (Gasca and Osborne were at the same inspiring table, even), Amy Christine of Holus Bolus and The Joy Fantastic, Rachel DeAscentiis of Say When, Anna deLaski of Solminer. The list could go on and on. Simply put--if there's a wine you like locally, the odds are good a woman made it.

The utter creativity on display also impressed. Sure, you could have a special SRH Pinot at many a table, but then there was the refreshing zest of Dreamcôte's Prickly Pear Hard Apple Cider, or the winningly floral Grüner Veltliner from Camins 2 Dreams, or a tantalizing Sparkling Rosé Méthode Champenoise, in half bottles, of all impractical things as sparkling is just that, from Future Perfect.

Future Perfect's logo also connected to the 2023 beneficiary of this non-profit event, The Rainbow House, the first LGBTQIA+ community resource center in the Santa Ynez Valley. Inc. Their hope is to create a refuge for the queer community that stands as a beacon of acceptance and peace.

The Mattei's team at work on their two dishes--I only ended up trying the delicious duck wonton-y item on the left, alas. And, alas here I didn't write nearly enough about the delicious food, like Melissa Scrymgeour's gumbo z'herbes and black eyed peas (a tribute to Nawlin's great Leah Chase), and Erica Velasquez's yellowtail "hamachi" sashimi gorgeously plated, and Jessica Foster's ever-exceptional confections, and Theo Stephan's olive oil blood orange cake. 

Third District Supervisor Joan Hartmann admitting that at least on this day she had a cushy job.

Emmy Fjerstad of Forsu Wines, her business so small it doesn't even have a website.

Petit Verdot, Dolcetto, and more at Final Girl.

And then as final evidence of community, yep that's Alecia Moore of Two Wolves doing the palms up in the black t-shirt in the Barn (sounds like a Clue guess!). You might know her better as Pink, or should I type P!nk, selling out a SoFi Stadium near you soon. But for the day she praised her team, poured well-crafted wine, chatted (her table did have the longest line all afternoon, even if everyone was cool about it and didn't get all selfie-demanding or anything, so go SYV!), and then won the raffle for the Estrogen Collection of over 50 bottles of women-made wine. 

The afternoon couldn't have been a more powerful celebration of International Women's Day.

Bullet Point-esque Round Up. WOPN: Day 2

What else can I say then I got to spend a Saturday afternoon eating cheese and Pinot and then chocolate truffles and Pinot? Fromagerie Sophie not only nailed their pairings but also introduced me to seven cheeses I had never had before. (Go find Olivet Fain, Langres, and Chiriboga Obere Mu Blue right now.) And then the always spectacular Jessica Foster blew everyone away by finding chocolate that worked with the not-as-deep Pinot.

Some lovely random quotes and notes: "Cheese B.O.," "You cheese flipping robot!," "It's almost like the chocolate chews itself."

Media room. Three walls of Pinot. Lots of highlights, but perhaps most special as most rare, the Rusack 2013 from Santa Catalina. It's no mere stunt--a bit more bramble, a bit more wild, a lot more lovely.

Steve Clifton, no stranger to rock and roll himself, and his wife Chrystal, are killing it with the new La Voix label. Part of the fun is the wines all got rock names, including the 2012 Reflektor, from the Machado Vineyard, which I waxed eloquently about yesterday. So, yes, drink and dance madly.

Discovery! Withers, which we couldn't pass up given Branden Bidwell, wine director of the Wine Cask was tasting at their table and singing praises. an incredible range, from an Anderson Valley Pinot to Rhone blends from the Sierra Foothills you want to drink.

Ridiculous deliciousness from folks I've previewed in the run up to WOPN: E16, Hitching Post, Failla, Ampelos.

WOPN Shares Pinot Pairs

Sure it's very hard to think "poor you" when a person says, "We did, of course, subject ourselves to a couple-hour session of tasting nearly 20 cheeses with the three wines up in downtown SLO a few weeks ago." But given the results of all that "work" means a better event at the World of Pinot Noir, the better that is for all of us attending.

The speaker of that quote was Matt Kettmann, senior editor at the Santa Barbara Independent and contributing editor for Wine Enthusiast, who will be moderating two panels Saturday morning, Myth-Busting: Pinot, Cheese and Chocolate. For cheese he will be able to lean on the expertise of Sophie Boban-Doering and Paul Doering (both pictured above) of Fromagerie Sophie in SLO; for chocolate the mad skills of Jessica Foster of Jessica Foster Confections.

"The umbrella term 'cheese' is almost as broad as saying 'food.' There are so many different types of cheese in the world that Sophie has access to, you could find one to go with anything you're drinking, from soda water to a root beer float," Kettmann points out. "Which is to say, pairing wine and cheese is much easier than wine and chocolate, simply because there are so many wildly different possibilities, from light and crisp to unctuous and gooey." 

Boban-Doering was more than pleased with all the possible pairing options for Pinot. "Each Pinot is unique because of terroir, wine maker prerogative, weather, etc. Typically, the nose of a Pinot will guide me on what cheeses to try," she explains. "Some Pinots are peppery, others more fruit forward, some have a darker fruit flavor, while others have red cherry notes…in addition the texture of a wine can help dictate which cheeses to try; is the wine smooth or acidic, heavy or light? Pinots are fun to pair since they are so varied (it’s a tough job but someone has to do it)."

And while the usual two basic types of pairings are to complement or to contrast, Boban-Doering sees it in a more complex way that should make Saturday fascinating. "The moments when the cheese and wine pairings are transformational are my favorite," she says. "By transformational I mean that a flavor emerges from the pairing that I can’t attribute to just the wine or just the cheese. Transformational pairings result in flavors of anise or tobacco or some other herb or spice. So much is going on that it makes me think of what I’m experiencing. Then, out of nowhere, a complexity between the cheese and wine dances in your mouth and finishes beautifully."

 Of course pretty much nothing finishes as beautifully as chocolate with wine, but people need to think before they drink. "Dark chocolate can be bitter and biting, while milkier chocolate tends to be lush, scene-stealing, and even cloying," Kettmann spells out. "That may go well with some dessert wines and very rich, cocktail-style Cabs, but even those are harder to pair with chocolate than you would think. Pinot can be more versatile depending on the style, but chocolate really demands its own space on your palate. So yea, it's no piece of [chocolate] cake."

Of course it's not like WOPN will have you sucking on a Hershey's kiss and swigging Two-Buck Chuck. "Luckily, in the case of Jessica Foster, we are pairing amazing truffles that feature a range of spices, fruits, and other fillings and toppings," Kettmann points out. "That really opened up the possibilities, and I think we've found some nice combinations for the three wines, which are, incidentally, a sparkler from Oregon, a rose from Sancerre, and a regular red Pinot from Sonoma.

"And if you don't like the pairings, we've got some cool backstories on the producers and the locally sourced ingredients in each truffle to keep you interested. But really, with fine hand-made chocolates and fine hand-made wines, what's not to like?"

It doesn't hurt that both seminars feature winemakers who have particular affinities for their food subject--for instance Jim Klein from Navarro, Anderson Valley's fine producer that also makes cheese, too--so the only question after the seminars will be: did I learn more or like more?

A Tickle of the Taste Buds

You get to both eat and drink in the wonderful World of Pinot Noir. Take a gander at the photo above, one of the two seminars from last year's fest, matching Pinot with mushrooms. (I promise the "he's a Funghi" title was not mine, despite how I love a pun as much as delicious abalone mushrooms over a braised beef short rib.)

This year, the food seminars deal with cheese pairings, featuring Sophie Boban-Doering and Paul Doering of Fromagerie Sophie in SLO, and with chocolate pairings, featuring the ridiculously talented Jessica Foster.

I'll get to some interviews with both, but I found this photo and figured I had to share.

Big Foodie Festival in Little Bacara

If you’re gonna do a food festival, whose spirit would be better to invoke than the woman who made French cuisine safe for American kitchens? It certainly doesn’t hurt that Julia Child covered the Santa Barbara angle, too, so it makes sense that the Bacara teamed up with the Julia Child Foundation to host an annual Food & Wine Weekend, now in its second year. Going down at the resort and beyond April 16-19 are numerous tastings, demos, and a special dinner with actor/winemaker Kurt Russell, who’ll share his GoGi and Hudson Bellamy wines, which he also pours regularly in the Wine Saloon at the 1880 Union Hotel in Los Alamos.

If you want to read the rest then do so at the Indy's site.