SanTasti is here to be your palate cleanser for all things good and Tasty, aka wine and food!

Be warned, this tasting is very cruel to young taste buds!!!

Part 1

Part 2

I love this picture.

Paul Frankel, winemaker for Sculptera Winery, shares his story on how he jumped into the wine business. www.winejump.com

We at SanTasti recently realized that everyone in the wine world always gets asked or asks their peers “how they got into this business?”

It is a story we are all familiar with and it requires little thought to answer, only a quick recollection of each of our histories and the events that lead us down the path to jumping into the wine business.

We also realized that these 30 second to 3 minute stories are perfect for the web and that is exactly where we are going to put them.

This is where winejump comes into play. A place to share our stories on how and why we jumped into the wine business.

My goal with all of this is to put a face on the wine industry. And provide another medium for all of us to connect with our peers and supporters.

The videos you see on the site are ones that I have filmed while out on the central coast visiting wineries and promoting SanTásti.

If you are outside of our area on the central coast then I strongly encourage you to film your own videos and send us the youtube link. It’s not that hard, you can do it. All you need is a webcam and your personality. We’ll take care of the rest. For those who have videos up on winejump… put them on your site… show your customers who you are and why you do what you do for them.

Our wines and foods are all interesting in their own right, but it’s the people that stand behind them that we are really interested in here at winejump. And that’s exactly what we are going to feature.

Dolfin Chocolate

Noir au Poivre Rose (Dark Chocolate with Pink Peppercorns)

Belgium

52% Cocoa

$5.00 (2.47 oz.) from DrexeliusChocolates.com

Score: 85

As I open the delicate pink package fit for a queen (or a dedicated and obsessed chocolate lover like me) it unwraps like an invitation and out wafts an amazing combination of dark rich chocolate and…pepper?! Yes, that’s definitely pepper.

After removing the bar from the package I break off a piece a rub it in between my fingers and inhale deeply. The pink peppercorn is exotic, but at the same time surprisingly warm and compliments the chocolate perfectly.

I take a small bite and it bights back as the chocolate melts on my tongue. The pepper seems to blend into the background as the vanilla and espresso flavors come to the front of the palate. This one’s a keeper! I think my dad will love it too – a true pepper fanatic.

I’m thinking of pairing this fabulous chocolate with a peppery late harvest syrah or zinfandel…or maybe right after dinner with that last glass of syrah.

Check back soon for the next chocolate review!

Special thanks to DrexeliusChocolates.com for providing the premium chocolates for review.

-Nicole

SanTásti, what does it mean and where did it come from? This is a question we get all the time and I figured it warranted a solid answer for those who are curious. 

Anyone who as ever tried to name a business, brand or product knows how hard it is. It’s like naming a child – you don’t want people making fun of your baby on the playground. It’s very difficult to find an original and appropriate name that isn’t taken. The last thing you want is to get sued by Coke as soon as you’ve developed some good will and recognition behind your brand.

With a product focused on cleansing/cleaning and reviving/revitalizing, we faced a lot of challenges in coming up with a name that didn’t sound like a kitchen and bathroom cleaner or a new pharmaceutical drug.  Time after time, the names we felt were appropriate were taken.

Needless to say Nicole and I spent a lot of our Innovation Quest money on lawyers telling us we might get sued if we used some of our first names for what is known today as SanTásti.  This was a frustrating and expensive process that inspired us to just make up a word.

SanTásti came from a list of words that we felt were related to the product. We combined “sense” and “taste” to get “SenTasti.” We bounced it around a few people and one of our family members suggested “SanTasti.” We liked it…  we felt like it had two meanings that would be picked up:

• One of these meanings is, as you guessed, ”without taste” with a twist on the French word “sans.”
• The other meaning stems from a more Latin root of “san” giving “whole taste.” 

We like this name so much because it explains how our classic beverage tastes (flavorless, as to not impair your next tasting) as well as what it does for your palate (gives you the whole experience). We also liked how the domain name was available and the lawyers Okayed it.

We later added the accent to help with the pronunciation. For those of you who are still uncertain on how to pronounce SanTásti, click here.

With all of this information and the green light to go ahead with “SanTásti” we still couldn’t make the decision. We knew we only had one shot at it and we didn’t want to mess it up. The old saying of “paralysis by analysis” definitely held true as we found ourselves unable to commit to a name. 

Confused and without conviction, Nicole and I took a walk through downtown SLO to clear our heads and come up with our answer… and that’s when we saw this.

Serendipity?  Coincidence?  Some sort of cosmic joke? Either way we took it as a sign and decided to just go for it.

As someone who has gone through the process, my advice is to pick a name and get going. Think about what Shakespeare said… “A rose by any other name.” Meaning –what matters is what something is, not what it is called.

Today I’m very happy with SanTásti. It’s a great name for our palate cleansing beverage. The response we generally get when we share some of our earlier names is consistent. People can’t imagine SanTásti being called anything else.