Cake & Dessert

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Chocolate & Wine Shop
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Sweet Traders creates stunning and fabulously delicious Chocolate Gifts, Wedding Cakes, Desserts, and high end Wine Gifts and Gift Baskets, never compromising on quality for quantity!
We understand the true nature of gift giving, that the gift sent is representative of the senders sentiments so we create delicious and unique high quality gifts like our Chocolate Dipped Wine Bottles, that we ourselves would like to receive and send to friends, family and business acquaintances. This same desire, passion and quality translates into our Wedding and Celebration Cakes as evidenced by our numerous awards on The Knot and Wedding Wire.
Whether it’s unique Corporate Gifts, Christmas Gift Baskets, Holiday Office Gifts, Christmas Gifts, Wedding Gifts, or Chocolate Valentine's Day Gifts Sweet Traders is the place to shop. We have Valentine's Day Gift Ideas they will love including, Wine and Chocolate Valentines Day Gifts and Valentine's Day Chocolate and Sweets Gift Baskets. We lovingly create Wine and Champagne Gifts, Chocolate Dipped Wine Bottles, Gourmet ChocolateTrays, and Chocolate Gift Towers that are sure to delight one and all. Not to mention our Chocolate Dipped Cake Truffles paired with wine make the perfect Valentine's Day Wine & Dessert Gift !


Due to the delicate nature of our Wedding Cakes, Celebration Cakes and Desserts, such items cannot be shipped however we do have a range of delicious Gourmet Chocolates and treats that can be delivered, such as our Chocolate Dipped Red Velvet Cake Truffles, English Toffee, Chocolate Covered Vanilla Fudge, California Gold Nuggets, and Chocolate Covered Red Velvet Cupcakes.


To see and learn more about our beautiful and delicious Wedding Cakes, Cupcakes and specialty Desserts, click on our Bakery Boutique above. If you're ready to order one of our Chocolate Dipped Wines and Champagnes or mouthwatering gourmet Chocolate Gifts, click on our Chocolate and Wine Gift Shop above. Happy Shopping! 

Wine and Chocolate

Pairing wine and chocolate, once unthinkable, is now common place and well accepted. However it has to be done correctly, not every wine or champagne pairs well with chocolate. At Sweet Traders we have taken away the guess work for you, we taste the wine first and then we try it with Gold Medal winning Guittard chocolate. A wine may taste great on its own but when tried with chocolate, it may lose its appeal, on the other hand a wine that may be “just nice” can be transformed into a winner! 

The general rule for pairing wine with chocolate is fairly simple, sweeter wines go with sweeter chocolate, dryer wines and champagnes go better with more bitter chocolate, in other words chocolate with a higher cocoa content and less sugar and milk solids. For example sweet wines like Beringer White Zinfandel or Rieslings and Gewurztraminers pair better with milk chocolate while red wines, like Cabernets, Merlots and Zinfandels pair best with dark chocolate. In general reds that are full of berry flavors such as cherry, raspberry, strawberry and blackberry pair best with dark chocolate. For more on how to pair wine and chocolate watch this informative video with Jonathon Stewart For About.com Food How to Pair Wine and Chocolate.

Once the taste test has been done and the pairings decided upon the bottles are then hand dipped in Guittard chocolate using our special process and then sealed to ensure freshness. As with all of our products we dip in small batches to ensure quality control and freshness of our Chocolate Covered Wines and Chocolate Gifts.

Of course with all the hundreds of wines and champagnes available it is impossible for us to stock them all so we have selected a range of tried and tested popular wines for our customers to choose from. 

Origins of the Chocolate Dipped Wine Bottle

Did you know that Sweet Traders is home of the original Chocolate Dipped Wine Bottle? As the saying goes imitation is the best form of flattery and there certainly are many imitators who have promoted  the idea as their own but we patented the design back in 2000 under our corporate name of Tomfoolery Serious Chocolate Inc. The actual inventor is our much loved and admired Millie Sweesy, who came up with the idea back in the late 80’s while operating the Tomfoolery chocolate business from the shop on the Balboa Peninsula. 

In an excerpt from an article published in the LA Times back in 1991, Millie explains how she came up with the idea of chocolate dipped wine bottles, "Some nights I'd work until midnight making candies or baking," she said. "Usually friends would drop by with a bottle of wine or champagne. Of course, candy has to be sampled and wine must be drunk. That's when the idea of slathering a bottle of champagne with chocolate was born. We tried names like 'Rip and Sip,' but 'Peel and Pour' stuck." Click here to read the rest of her story.

When the new owners of Tomfoolery took over the business in 2004 they spent countless hours learning the art of pairing the chocolate dipped wine and champagne bottles, as well as chocolate candy making. They also discovered their patented “Peel & Pour” chocolate dipped wine process was being copied by a competitor.  Millie regretfully told them how this came about…before she had patented the process she had been attending trade shows to launch her product and it was at such a show, that she innocently explained her idea to what she thought was a potential customer. However, barely a year later this “potential customer”  was copying Millie’s idea and adding it to her existing line of chocolate dipped strawberries. Today many more copiers have followed suit but none can match the authenticity and quality of Sweet Traders!