Blog
Stratus Bar
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We are lucky to have collaborated with some incredible makers and growers. Our latest project is working with Stratus Winery, a small vineyard out of Niagara-on-the-Lake. If you ever have a chance to go there, please do, their winery is every maker’s dream space. The Stratus folks are an incredibly skilled and passionate crew, we have taken quite a shine to them.
After chatting to our friends at Stratus about an idea we had, J-L Groux (Stratus winemaker extraordinaire), sent us an oak barrel partially filled with the residual yeast cells from the winemaking process known as “lees”. We roasted up a batch of Nacional cacao from Ecuador and added the roasted nibs to the barrel kicking it around once in a while to make sure things were mixed. After 3 months an incredible wine infused cacao emerged. The result is an elegant 70% Soma chocolate bar with a heightened dimension of a Stratus Wine. Good things happen when you put us together in the same room or in this case the same barrel.
![](http://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0307/7585/files/grapes_grande.jpg?10521)
grapes at Stratus's beautiful vineyard soon to be harvested.
the barrel JL sent to us to mix the lees and the roasted cacao nibs in.