Accidentally on Purpose
You’re in downtown Ventura on a cool night. Sweater weather. You’ve picked up carryout from your favorite restaurant in the Covid-era leftover Ventura Moves Main Street area. But you’re not ready to leave the fresh sea air. And a glass of wine would pair perfectly with your dinner.
Head to Happy Accidents Wine Co., say owners Alyssa and Eric Stalker, where you’re invited inside if the air gets too chilly, or outside on the patio if it’s warmer. It’s all about making people feel comfortable and welcomed.
“We wanted to make our space a fun, inviting place,” says Alyssa, “a space for community to come together and learn something new. Wine is such a personal experience.”
The Happy Accidents tasting room, offering small-batch natural wines, is located in downtown Ventura, nestled between Starbucks and Blenders in the Grass.
“We source our grapes up and down the coastline from Napa to Santa Barbara County,” says Eric. “They’re a unique taste of California. Our goal is to offer wine in its purest, most unadulterated form: wild, alive and happy. We produce interesting, multi-level and avant-garde natural wines. Our small-batch process means we get to keep things interesting with experimental blends and single-origin gems, while always keeping the classics on deck.”
“Our winery uses the same technique when producing our sparkling wine that Dom Perignon is said to have used in the 1690s when ‘accidentally’ discovering champagne.” —Eric Stalker, Happy Accident Wine Co.
Happy Accidents has a spectrum of flavors that anyone can enjoy. Owners Alyssa and Eric Stalker love to talk about their wines and their methods and are excited to share them with their patrons.
“We are called Happy Accidents because the discovery of wine and winemaking itself was a big ‘happy accident,’” he continues. “More specifically, our winery uses the same technique when producing our sparkling wine that Dom Perignon is said to have used in the 1690s when ‘accidentally’ discovering champagne.”
The wines are meant to be fun, so the Stalkers keep true to California-derived flavor palates. “Our wines are designed to be fruit forward, without being considered dessert wines. A lot of our white wine is made with light skin contact, producing an orange or amber color. This method is similar to rosé with slightly longer skin contact. The flavor profiles are very special,” says Eric. “We also use a less than 100-year-old method—fairly new—called carbonic macerations that was developed by a chemist in France.”
For this method, whole clusters of grapes are fermented and then instead of being crushed, they are placed in tanks with CO2. “Forcing the slight carbonation inside the grape changes the flavor profile tremendously. Sometimes the wines have surprising flavors like bubble gum or banana; it’s pretty wild,” he says. “I’ve never heard of it being sold like that.”
To make the tasting room a complete experience, they offer specialties like smoked mimosas, nonalcoholic slushies, trivia night, bingo night and live entertainment throughout the week.
“We welcome outside food and drinks. It’s OK if anyone wants to bring their meals, family and dogs to the patio, which is a little parklet with plenty of space,” says Alyssa.
Happy Accidents Wine Co.
607 E. Main St., Unit D, Ventura
805-628-3947
HappyAccidents.co
