Petaluma winemaker pairs wine, Girl Scout Cookies

Winemakers know their wines. And they tend to know what foods pair well with their wines. But sometimes a unique pairing challenge comes along in which they simply have no idea what will happen.

“Let’s just have fun and see what happens,” says Lorraine Barber, who has just opened four bottles of wine and set them on the table where several unopened packages of Girl Scout cookies await.

Barber — co-founder of Barber Cellars, and the creator of Snack Attack, a unique tasting room experience pairing common snack foods like beef sticks and onion chips with her best wines — is about to take on another unique pairing challenge.

“We’ll try stuff and see what works,” Barber says.

Barber Cellars, along with Barber Lee Spirits just next door, has become known for daring pairings of adult beverages and food. Though for February the bright-and-sunny downtown tasting room is hosting a fairly traditional experience they call the “Month of Love Cheese + Chocolate Experience,” Barber’s Snack Attack — available as a sit-down event or as a take-away package for at-home enjoyment — proved to be quite popular and in-demand during the winter holidays.

Though a wine-and-cookie pairing like the one Barber is about to improvise her way through is not something Barber Cellars offers, it seems like a good opportunity, given that Girl Scout Cookie season is officially in swing through the end of March, for Barber to demonstrate how she and her husband Mike develop the kind of tasting/pairing experiences they do offer.

“Let’s start with the Sauvignon Blanc because, why not?” Barber says, pouring out tasting-sized portions of her “La Lune” Alexander Valley 2019. “I’m going to guess that the Sauvignon Blanc is not going to go well with the peanut butter cookies or anything with chocolate or mint. So I’m going to say, let’s start with the Trefoils. Let’s see how this goes.”

Barber sips the wine first, than takes a bite of the Trefoil — which is the Girl Scouts answer to a traditional shortbread cookie — then tastes the wine again.

“That’s alright,“ she says, her voice making it clear that ”alright“ isn’t what she was hoping for. ”I wouldn’t write home about that or anything.“ She quickly moves on to the Lemon-Ups, crispy lemon cookies with different short inspirational affirmations imprinted onto them. Barber’s Lemon-Up says ”I’m Creative!“

She repeats the previously demonstrated sip-bite-sip process, after explaining what she’s looking for in a good good cookie/wine pairing.

“I’m basically looking to see if the pairing enhances the experience,” she says. “If the wine, all on its own, is good, which it is, and then I have a bite of the cookie and then taste the wine again, is it better, worse or neutral? They should amplify each other, without bringing each other’s flavors down. With the Trefoil, what was getting was making the wine more base, by taking away some acidity. I could have guessed that. With the Snack Attack, we’ve found that the Sauvignon Blanc pairs really well with Hawaiian Maui Onion Chips, so something like shortbread, which would taste great on its own, probably isn’t a great choice of a Sauvignon Blanc because its flavors are pretty subdued.”

After she’s tasted the Lemon-Up with the wine, she nods, clearly thinking through the experience on a multi-sensory level.

“I like that,” she says. “The acidity of the lemon and the wine play off of each other really nicely. It doesn’t weigh the wine down. It’s a nice pairing. The Lemon-Ups are the winner there.”

And so it goes. The next wine up is Barber’s 2019 Barbera Prologue.

“Our wines are high acid and low alcohol, so all of them are going to have some kind of acidity play,” Barber explains, pouring the wine and then scanning the pile of boxes for her next pairing choice. “Let’s try the Samoas, which happen to be my favorite Girl Scout cookie.“ As she opens the distinctively purple box of striped, caramel and coconut cookies, Barber admits that certain pairings she’d never have guessed would work turn out to be perfectly balanced tastes. ”For example, I would never have guessed that Taki’s fajita-flavored tortilla chips would just be a song with our sauvignon blanc, but it is. It’s great.”

Back to business, Barber tastes the Barbera, then the cookie, then the wine again.

“Ooh, that’s a big no from me,” she says, her face betraying her decision before her words do. “It’s too discordant. The caramel in the cookie just doesn’t work, and neither does the coconut. That surprises me, because Samoas are such a friendly cookie, right? They’re like, ‘Hey! I get along with everybody!’ But they don’t work with this particular wine.”

Moving on, she examines the many cookie choices in front of her.

“Let’s live on the edge. Let’s try the peanut butter,” Barber says, reaching for the Tagalongs, a crisp, chocolate-covered cookie with creamy peanut butter at its center. “Peanut butter has surprised me in the past. I have a complicated relationship with peanut butter. I like Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, but if someone gives me a cake or a pie or something flavored with peanut butter - no thank you.”

Sip. Taste. Sip. Another face. Another big no.

“The Barbera might not have a pairing,” Barber says. “At least, not with Girl Scout cookies. The Trefoils maybe. They were fine. Okay, let’s say that. If you have our Barbera wine, and you really want to eat a cookie with it, the Trefoils won’t do any damage.”

Since Barber Cellars does have its joint spirit-making operation next door, the question arises as to which Bar Lee Spirits offering might pair well with the Tagalongs, since the Barbera clearly does not.

“Ooh, yes. Our apple brandy,” she says. “Our apple brandy with peanut butter kind of becomes something different. The peanut butter brings out the smokiness in the brandy, even though there’s nothing in it to be smoky. So that might be a good pairing for Tagalongs.”

As the tasting continues, the following discoveries are made.

Barber Cellars’ Sangiovese “Il Grosso Piccolo,” Carneros 2019 pairs well with both the S’mores and the Thin Mints. The 2019 “Mr. Beast” Zinfandel pairs nicely with the S’mores, and the 2019 “Zin Master” Reserve found a sweet spot with the newest Girl Scout cookie to be released, the caramel/chocolate brownie-inspired Adventurefuls.

“You know what else the ‘Zin Master’ works well with? Stemple Farms Beef Sticks,” Barber points out. “It’s amazing. It sings.”

Following a quick trip next door to the distillery for some bottles of fine spirits, Barber continues her explorations, ultimately proclaiming that the company’s apple brandy does indeed work with the peanut butter Tagalongs, the white rum goes well with the Thin Mints, malted rye works wonders with the Samoas, and Barber Lee’s white absythe is a perfect pair with the Lemon-Ups.

“Something about the wormwood goes nicely with the lemon,” says Barber. “Who knew?”

The point of such playful exercise, of course — and one of the reasons Barber Cellars created the Snack Attack experience — is to remind people that fine wines can fit in under both casual circumstances and formal ones.

“We really want people to start thinking about everyday pairings, because we’re not all living off of filet mignon and salmon,” Barber says. “Wine can go with lots of different things, whether it s a fancy meal or a sandwich or Girl Scout cookies, and it’s just fun to get into the mind set of thinking about what pairs with what? Life can get really serious, but wine doesn’t have to be serious, right? Wine is fun, so whenever you have the opportunity, why not just have fun with it?”