Oct 17 Friday
Attendees will enjoy a welcome drink while we give a brief introduction to our bean-to-bar, dark chocolate making process. Ingredients for decorating will abound and inspire, and you'll learn a few tidbits about how we invent flavor combinations for new delicious, sweet products at our chocolate factory. We will fill chocolate bar molds with luscious 75% dark chocolate, and you will get to decorate chocolate bars with local ingredients, like flowers, salt and fruit. While bars are setting up, we will lead a 20-30 minute chocolate tasting experience while you sip on perfectly paired wines to enhance the flavors. We are happy to provide a non-alcoholic tasting experience for anyone in the group who might require that. Your custom chocolate bars will go home with you in beautiful, resealable Twenty-Four Blackbirds pouches. Don't miss out on this delicious experience!
Oct 18 Saturday
In its 41st year, the Santa Barbara Vintners Festival is truly the Original Santa Barbara Wine Festival.
Don’t miss the opportunity to taste wines from 60+ wineries and sample regional cuisine from dozens of restaurants, chefs, and food producers, while strolling through the picturesque vines at Vega Vineyard and Farm. Chat with the winemakers and winery owners and enjoy live music from Generic Clapton. At the Rio Vista Chevrolet Bubble Lounge, sample sparkling wines from some of the region’s top producers.
An Early Entry Admission ticket grants access to the festival at noon, 60 minutes prior to General Admission tickets, providing the opportunity to interact more personally with winemakers, owners, and chefs in a more spacious, open, and uncrowded environment.
Peek behind-the-scenes of our chocolate factory to get a high-level overview of the chocolate-making process, from bean to bar! This event is great for families, corporate groups, bachelorette weekends, and anyone new to chocolate or curious about where their food comes from. You’ll get to taste warm, flowing dark chocolate from our tempering machine, and you’ll get to sample our single origin 75% dark chocolate bars.
Oct 23 Thursday
This event is for someone with a high interest in single-origin dark chocolate, where it comes from, how it's processed and the technicalities behind making shiny, lusciously smooth chocolate from what starts as a small, bitter bean. You’ll get to taste chocolate at every stage, from bean to bar (including sampling through all our single origin dark chocolate bars), as well as other products we make, like caramel and chocolate-covered espresso beans. We’ll describe the stages of roasting, sorting, refining and tempering. You’ll come away having tasted a lot of chocolate and having learned more about our specialty!
Join us on a beautifully paired wine and chocolate experience. This guided tour walks you through the chocolate making process, from bean to bar! Taste the cacao every step of the way and finish with a chocolate and beverage tasting that excitingly pairs three truffles with three sustainably-made, small production wines, selected and poured by our local wine partner, WINECULT.
Oct 24 Friday
Oct 25 Saturday
Oct 30 Thursday