Full Belly Files | Mushrooms, Wine Women, and Pappy Van Winkle

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Bob Cummings speaks at Gainey’s mushroom lunch.

From left: Matt, Dan Gainey, Jeff LeBard, and Bob Cummings

As we crept beneath the umbrellas of ancient oaks, with our eyes fixed on the damp earth for golden flashes of our preferred fungi, the renowned mushroom expert Bob Cummings promised that wild pigs don’t eat chanterelles.

But given the mess that these boars recently made of every square inch of shaded ground — the same zone where these delectable wild shrooms emerge from the oaks’ sprawling root systems — the specifics of swine diets didn’t matter much. What had been a reliable hunting ground for chanterelles was mostly a trample of mud and poison oak shoots this past Friday, with only a scattered few of the plump treasures finding their way into our baskets.

We really weren’t all that dismayed, however. We were, after all, spending the morning wandering through pristine nature, rather than seated at desks, and we all appreciated that mushroom hunting is a finicky affair, especially when it’s only rained a few times in the preceding months.

The Jack o’ Lantern mushroom is poisonous, but it glows!

More uplifting to the overall vibe was that our search party wasn’t just about finding elusive edible mushrooms this time, as it was last year. Instead, we were charged with gathering as many different types of mushrooms as we could to showcase the next morning during the annual “Mushroom Education, Wine & Food Exploration” at Gainey Vineyard.

In addition to Cummings and myself, our group included Dan Gainey, winemaker Jeff LeBard, and their GM Stephen Janes, just like last year. “He’s got the fever!” said Cummings of the far-ranging Janes at one point, though I’m pretty sure he got plenty of poison oak too.

[Click to enlarge]: Jeff LeBard with a log of oyster mushrooms

In addition to the handful of chanterelles, our haul included trippy-colored cracked boletes otherwise known at “poor man’s porcinis”; a purplish blewit, edible though apparently mushy; lots of small, common white agaricus, not edible; a possibly hallucinogenic cluster growing on a cow patty; a few poisonous ones that I didn’t write down; and, most excitingly, a log-load of oyster mushrooms. “That was cool,” said LeBard. “I’ve never found oysters.”

After meeting Cummings during a 2015 World of Pinot Noir panel that I moderated, LeBard grew into quite the forager and now frequently quizzes himself on names, using Cummings as the key. He got a couple right and a couple wrong this trip, though sometimes due to a technicality. “I finally get one right, and they changed the name,” lamented LeBard.

That type of information — such as how quickly evolving the mycology world is, with names changing frequently — was what Cummings presented the next morning during the event. As guests arrived, they could peruse the table of our discoveries, and then settle in over glasses of rose and sauvignon blanc to listen to Cummings explain the wide world of mushrooms, from the tastiest edibles to those like turkey tail that are being used to recover from radiation treatment.

Then came lunch, which was prepared by Jake Francis of The Valley Piggery and supplied largely by Wolfe Family Farm’s mushrooms. We enjoyed a chanterelle soup with chili oil (paired with the fascinating sauvignon gris); a warm mushroom salad with lion’s mane, aged goat cheese, and pickled shiitake vinaigrette (Evan’s Ranch chardonnay and pinot noir); pioppini mushrooms, butternut squash, and mascarpone on toast (Gainey chardonnay and pinot noir); and candy cap crème brulée (with 2006 late harvest viognier that Janes found in the cellar).

It was a grand way to spend a sunny though crisp Saturday late winter morning in the Santa Ynez Valley, and easy to see why it sells out so quickly every year. You should set a reminder for early next year to check on when the 2026 version will happen.

Wine Women & Pappy Van Winkle

Participating winemakers at the Women Winemakers & Culinarians Grand Tasting event at 27 Vines. | Photo: Deborah Chadsey

Squeezed between Friday’s hunting and Saturday’s lunch, I met some brand-new friends in the wine industry and reconnected with quite a few folks who I’ve known for many years.

Comedian Lorena Russi at the Sips and She-nanigans event

Those longtime friends were gathered at Fess Parker Winery on Friday night, where the Santa Barbara Women County Winemakers & Culinarians Celebration hosted “Sips and She-nanigans: A Sassy Soirée!” I was bummed to miss the previous night’s tribute to Lane Tanner — which I heard was packed with pioneers and quite a few happy tears — and realized that I was going to miss Saturday’s grand tasting due to the mushroom affair.

So I was very happy to attend this swanky affair, which toasted seven women who work a bit behind the scenes in the wine industry: Cambria’s oenologist Samantha Aguilar; Future Perfect’s GM Gillian Arnold; Story of Soil’s assistant winemaker Courtney Colerick; Dreamcôte’s tasting room manager Nicole Crawford; Foxen’s VP of operations and finance Riley Slack; Los Olivos Wine Merchant Café’s line cook Jasmina Urbina; and Our Lady of Guadalupe’s director of vineyard operations, Amy Whiteford. The video featuring each woman and their acceptance speeches were heartfelt and touching, making for a meaningful and memorable evening.

My new friends are Ken and Melissa Miller, the owners of Horizon Cellars, who hosted me in their guest house for the evening. We quickly connected over their estate-grown grenache rosé before the event, but then I came up to their house afterward to chat and sip on more of their Horizon bottlings. They produce sauvignon blanc, roussanne, and grenache, mostly grown on their estate vineyard that rises steeply into the hills of Woodstock Ranch.

Then out came the Pappy Van Winkle, the famously expensive bourbon that I’ve read much about but never really tasted. We tasted through three bottlings: the 15-year, the 20-year, and the 23-year. The 15 and 23 were my favorites, though both the Blanton’s and the Elmer T. Lee proved a bit more interesting to me (and to Ken). The Elmer was particularly fresh, a quality I’ve rarely experienced in bourbon.

Finally, The Ellwood

[Click to enlarge]: From left: Char siu pork tomahawk at The Ellwood; The Ellwood’s salmon poké; The Ellwood’s butter cake.

At long last, I ate at The Ellwood on Sunday, the long-awaited restaurant taking over the old Beachside Café location at Goleta Beach. I’ll be writing a proper feature within the next week or so, but the short story is that my wife and I were both very impressed with the scene, the service, and the menu by Chef Craig Riker, whom I last wrote about here.

I’m pretty sure that I’ve written more stories about The Ellwood — there are at least eight separate articles, including a number penned before it was even named — than about any restaurant I’ve ever covered, so I’m very happy that now I can write about the food. Plus, it’s only a few minutes from my house, which means I’ll be there quite a bit, especially as they expand into lunch and brunch service. I’m already returning this Sunday for another dinner.

Boar @ Convivo; Crab @ Finch & Fork

Boar tortellini from the 2024 Convivo dinner | Credit: Courtesy

For the second year in a row, Chef Peter McNee is throwing a boar dinner at Convivo, in which he turns the whole animal into an impressive array of different dishes. This year, each course will be paired with wines from SAMsARA, with some chatting by winemaker Matt Brady, and then the dessert is being presented by chocolatier extraordinaire Jessica Foster.

Convivo’s Boar Dinner is on Thursday, March 20. There are just a few tickets left, so click here to join us. You can also read my article about it for more info.

If seafood is more of your thing, then check out the Crab & Chardonnay night at Finch & Fork on Wednesday, April 2. The communal crab bake, which comes with rock crab, chorizo, shrimp, littleneck clams, corn, and red potatoes, will be paired with wines from Greg Brewer of Brewer-Clifton and Jill Russell from Cambria Winery. Click here for tickets.

From Our Table

A flight of Validation brews | Photo: Ingrid Bostrom

Here are some stories you may have missed:

Ryan Cruz on Tri-County Produce closing.

George Yatchisin covers Lodestar Whiskey’s Santa Barbara debut.

Rebecca Horrigan reports on Validation Ale’s De la Vina Street expansion.

I wrote about this year’s Tomatomania.

And for Wine Enthusiast, I interviewed a number of Central Coast winemakers to explain why we smell and taste sagebrush and other plant species in our wines. I couldn’t get any scientists to agree.