This is way more doughnut than I bargained for. Four full-sized doughnuts are placed in front of me. Blueberry, apple, vanilla, and chocolate cake. Each is iced in frosting infused with the wine it will be paired with.
Riverbench 2017 Bedrock Chardonnay pours into an etched wine glass. I gently tear the Blueberry Chardonnay Cake Doughnut into four pieces. My friends are there to taste through Riverbench’s pinot noir flight while I stuff my face with doughnuts, but they’re not getting out of having a nibble.
Next up is an Apple Cake Chardonnay Cake Doughnut with the 2016 Reserve Chardonnay. The doughnut is moist and not too sweet—and oddly enough, it’s kind of perfect with the buttery reserve chardonnay.
Doughnuts and wine. Those are not two things you would normally put together, but Riverbench Winery and Vineyard and God’s Country Provisions did just that on Jan. 12, their second pairing event at Riverbench. The first was in November, and it went really well, according to Riverbench Director of Hospitality Danae Smith.
“We just thought it was something different. People love doughnuts,” Smith said. “With the doughnuts, it brings people out here all day long. You haven’t found that in this area all that much.”
Because Riverbench is a little more remote, and there aren’t a ton of options for entertainment and food close by, Smith said they try to hold events like the pairing pretty regularly.
“People love food and people love wine, so you put the two together and you’re going to draw traffic,” she said.
Starting in March, Riverbench will have food trucks and live music on the last Sunday of every month through October. The winery also does a chocolate truffles and sparkling wine pairing on Valentine’s Day, Feb. 14, and will be holding a honey tasting on Jan. 25 with local beekeeper David Maislen. At some point in the future, Smith said, Riverbench will most likely be doing another wine and doughnut pairing.
Matching up sweet deserts with wine can be difficult, but Smith said it really helped that each wine was incorporated into the doughnut itself. In November, God’s Country Provisions made doughnut holes with wine-infused fillings inside.
“Having the wines infused, you can make them actually pair well. It’s not like we just threw chardonnay with a vanilla doughnut. We put some thought into it to work in that flavor,” she said.
Loren Ollenburger from God’s Country Provisions said the doughnut flavors were crafted using the flavor profile of the wine they would be paired with.
“We definitely leverage the tasting notes that wineries put out for each wine,” Ollenburger said. “Using the tasting notes from the winery to understand what particular elements shine through for each wine, we’ll do our own tasting with our culinary team to figure out what works well.”
What they’re really doing, Ollenburger said, is looking for complementary flavors. For instance, he said, a Fruit Loops doughnut probably isn’t the best choice to pair with a wine. It’s way too sweet and isn’t subtle at all. The cereal would overpower any wine it tried to match up with. But the 2016 Riverbench One Palm Pinot Noir, which the tasting notes say is “full bodied” and “melds dark fruits,” was complemented by the vanilla cake doughnut with dark chocolate pinot icing, which was delicious.
“[We’re] looking for flavors that aren’t going to overpower—one over the other. And also flavors that are going to help the wine shine,” Ollenburger said. “Putting together flavors, … that’s something that we pay close attention to.”
As the “one and only doughnut shop in the Santa Ynez Valley,” Ollenburger said God’s Country tries to focus on quality, community, hospitality, and customer service in everything it does. The shop, which started in Buellton, celebrated its one-year anniversary on Jan. 18 and 19. It recently opened a pop-up location in Los Olivos and does events and pairings with other local wineries, plus weddings and fundraisers, among other things.
“We run the gamut in terms of things that we’re able to collaborate with our customers on,” Ollenburger said.
As far as the Riverbench pairing goes, Ollenburger said they received great feedback from customers and the winery. It was a fun experience, and he said it’s always great to hear about the little ways in which God’s Country Provisions can enhance their product for the next go round.
Ollenburger said he always tells the people who work for him that the goal is for the customers to leave happy, with a smile on their face.
I was certainly smiling as I bit into the last doughnut of the Jan. 12 pairing, a Mocha Pinot Chocolate Cake Doughnut coupled with the Riverbench 2015 Mesa Pinot Noir. The matchup was easily my favorite. The bittersweet chocolate and coffee melded almost seamlessly with the earthy and musty undertones of the pinot.
“We’re really selling smiles. The fact that someone can walk out of an event with a smile and a happy little memory on a Saturday, we’re always happy to be a part of that,” Ollenburger said. m
All Editor Camillia Lanham remembers is chocolate and wine. Send story tidbits to clanham@santamariasun.com.
Nibbles & Bites
• More than 65 judges from across North America tasted and evaluated nearly 6,700 wines from more than 1,000 wineries for the 2020 San Francisco Chronicle Wine Competition. And as of Jan. 10, the results are in: Santa Barbara County’s own Rancho Sisquoc took a best of class award for its 2017 Santa Barbara County Flood Family Vineyards Cabernet Franc in the category Cab Franc/$30 to $39.99. Central Coast wineries just north of Santa Barbara County also fared well at this year’s competition. Best of class awards went to these wineries in SLO County: Chronic Cellars, Robert Hall, Chamisal, Oso Libre, Ecluse, Broken Earth, Halter Ranch, Crooked Path, Thacher, Derby Wine Estates, and Saucelito Canyon. SLO County’s small, family-owned Kelsey See Canyon Vineyards was awarded a dozen medals, including winning best of class in the category White Blends/$30 and Over for the 2018 Spontaneous Groove. Kelsey’s 2017 merlot received a double gold (a unanimous vote by all panel members) in the category of Merlot/$27 to $30.99. The 2017 The Kiss, a méthode champenoise sparkling chardonnay, took gold in the category Blanc de Blancs. Visit winejudging.com for more information.
Correction
• In the Jan. 16 article “Moonshine’s shadow,” about America’s Wine: The Legacy of Prohibition, the documentary’s age was incorrectly described; the correct age is 11 years old.
Associate Editor Andrea Rooks is raising a glass to Central Coast wines. Send worthy wines and tasty tips to arooks@newtimesslo.com.
This article appears in Jan 23-30, 2020.
