Bubbles and Glitter Riverbench Bubblies Come in Bottles that Shimmer

All that glitters may not be gold. But when it comes to these sparkling wine bottles – glittering and bursting with color – the flavors definitely shine.

Just in time for the holidays, Riverbench Winery is bringing back this unique festive packaging for its full line of sparkling wines. The “Glitter Bottles” are fully covered in shimmering glitter, which comes in a variety of holiday colors, from red to gold and blue to pink. Thanks to the way the glitter catches and reflects light, this special adornment connotes fun and celebration and, in a special way, reflects the vivacity and energy of the effervescent liquid inside.

“The bottles can be customized,” says Riverbench General Manager Danae Smith, “and the possibilities are endless!”

Using Mod Podge, a polymer popular with crafts enthusiasts that both glues and seals, the champagne-shaped bottles are dusted with the glitter for a festive finish. And while ready-to-go sparkling sparklers can be ordered online or bought directly through Riverbench’s tasting rooms on their Santa Maria Valley estate or in the heart of Santa Barbara’s Funk Zone, they can also be made-to-order. Customers can select their only glitter options “as a way to create their own personalized gift,” adds Smith, “and to create their own wow factor.”

The glitter upgrade costs $10 and orders require about a week’s turnaround.

And for those who want to explore their own creative flair, Riverbench is hosting a Glitter Bottle workshop at both tasting rooms this Sunday, December 4, at 11 am. Guests can buy the bottle(s) of their choice and follow the lead of one of Riverbench’s talented bedazzlers. All glitter and supplies, and a glass of wine, are included. 

Tickets are $25 and can be purchased at exploretock.com/riverbenchsantabarbara

This unique marketing exercise is a wonderful reminder, of course, of the very impressive sparkling wine program at Riverbench, which produces no less than seven bubblies every vintage. The winery, which makes wines exclusively from its 150 acres of estate grapes – pinot noir and chardonnay, mainly – first planted roots back in 1973, in an area of the Santa Maria Valley replete with special soils.

“It’s all in the fossilized, mineral, ocean air characteristics in our ancient riverbed,” says winemaker Clarissa Nagy, acknowledging an area that, eons ago, would have been completely underwater. “We get great drainage but also have these great ancient mineral deposits.” These conditions are ideal for premium Burgundian grapes, which are also the classic components of any great sparkling wine.

Nagy was producing about 500 cases of bubbly a year when she joined Riverbench in 2012. Back then, the still wine – chardonnay for blanc de blancs and pinot for blanc de noirs – was trucked north to a sparkling wine house in Northern California that would bring it to its effervescent glory. By 2016, the winery had brought its sparkling winemaking operation totally in-house, giving Nagy and her team total control of the process, from seeds to bubbles. Today, Riverbench makes seven distinct sparkling wines, ranging in price from $44 to $68, and with an annual output of about 3,000 cases.

The Riverbench Blanc de Blancs ($48) is the best seller of the bunch, but both Smith and Nagy admit to being partial to the Cuvée, dubbed Cork Jumper ($52), which blends the three classic Champagne ingredients: chardonnay, pinot noir, and pinot meunier. Rich and luxurious, with lots of tropical notes, “I absolutely love it,” Smith declares. 

On our Thanksgiving table this year, the 2017 Sparkling Pinot Meunier ($68) was a hit, with its big citrus and berry flavors and its yeasty, creamy finish; this one’s all pinot meunier, a rare grape that, when Riverbench planted it in 2014, became the first to be grown for sparkling wine in all of California.

The popularity of the Riverbench bubblies “has been huge for our portfolio,” says Smith, and has given the brand, previously famous exclusively for pinot noir and chardonnay, “a whole new dynamic.” 

Nagy says the success of the sparkler program also helps to highlight the Santa Barbara County wine region as a whole, “amplifying the notoriety of the area as a sparkling wine producer,” she says, “and making sparkling wine more accessible to the general public.”

Riverbench is in good company these days, as the region has seen an explosion in the production of bubbly, especially in the last 10 years. Norm Yost of Flying Goat Cellars in Lompoc gets credit for launching Santa Barbara’s first serious sparkling wine program in 2011; today, his line Goat Bubbles, which features various bottlings and fruit from some of the area’s premier vineyards, is a no-brainer buy for any serious fan of bubbles. Fess Parker Winery’s program, Fesstivity, features several premium, and delicious, sparkling wines as well; the guided tastings at the quaint Bubble Shack in Los Olivos are super popular. Other Central Coast bubblies well worth considering for your end-of-year celebrations include Laetitia, Pence, Ampelos, J. Wilkes, and Folded Hills.

Cheers!