food
Wine & Cupcakes – A Pairing of Champions
August 29, 2011
As you wander the streets of Los Olivos, California (part of the Santa Ynez Valley and home to some primo wineries), don’t pass up the Saarloos and Sons tasting room. Saarloos and Sons parlays humor and family tradition into wines with loving names like “Father”, “Son”, “Mother” and “1945″ (when their grandparents married). Grape growers well before they produced their own wines, the Saarloos and Sons tasting room has a distinctly 1940′s feel (you can imagine Jimmy Stewart enjoying a vintage), but they’ve modernized a few key elements — like their wine pairings with Enjoy Cupcakes. Better yet, wine paired with wine-infused cupcakes. Did someone read my dream journal?
Enjoy Cupcakes creates a “flight” of 6 mini cupcakes each week that pair perfectly with 6 wines. They’ve created 320 flavors (and counting) so far including confections like Chocolate Blackberry Syrah, Cherry Vanilla Merlot, and Blueberry Lemon Chardonnay that won’t leave you disappointed. Prepared right on the Saarloos and Sons premises, most of the cupcakes change weekly although the Chocolate Blackberry Syrah remains a constant every week (chocolate cake infused with syrah, filled with dark chocolate Belgium fudge and topped with blackberry frosting and a wine soaked blackberry rolled in sugar crystals). As someone who’s tried it (paired perfectly with the Saarloos and Sons’ Brielle), I heartily endorse the Chocolate Blackberry Syrah’s status as a continual favorite.
Claudia Maittlen-Harris is a writer and comedian based in Los Angeles. She is the co-creator of the how-not-to dating/relationship blog, The Zeros Before the One.