Galt woman combines the best of wine, fudge

Marilyn Wilmoth has been a real estate broker for 25 years, about half of it in Galt. And while she's still a broker for A Better Way Realty, Wilmoth has resorted to something else.

She shoots wine into homemade fudge, and she's trying to make a career of it. It's something she started doing shortly after Christmas, when someone from Barsetti Winery came into the store at C Street and Lincoln Way and suggested that Wilmoth insert some of their wine into her fudge.

The idea was a success for Barsetti and Peirano wineries in Acampo, both of which used their wine in Wilmoth's fudge for the Wine and Chocolate Festival on Feb. 10-11. And a winery in the Mendocino County community of Hopland did the same thing for a similar festival there.

The idea to combine decadent fudge and all kinds of wine started when Wilmoth's daughter-in-law, Lin Wilmoth, happened to mention Marilyn Wilmoth's fudge-making business, Charm 'N' Candy Bouquet to Barsetti. A short time later, a Barsetti representative told her they would like to use her chocolate at the Lodi Wine and Chocolate Festival.

So Wilmoth hurriedly experimented to see if it would work — and it did.

"Any kind of wine they want me to use, I'll do it," she said. "I've probably made 500 pounds of fudge for the wineries."

Wilmoth said she'll put just about any kind of wine in her dark or white chocolate fudge. She'll put white or red wine in the fudge.

Her latest potential client is a winery in Malibu, which plans to send Wilmoth some of its wine so that she can send the winery a sample of her chocolate with their wine.

Wilmoth opened a charm store in Galt about five years ago and expanded it to a Candy Bouquet franchise. In addition to her wine-fudge creations, Wilmoth sells all sorts of trinkets, including stuffed animals, dolls, greeting cards, coffee cups, jigsaw puzzles, balloon bouquets, sports magnets, jewelry and other items.

"I work 90 hours a week," she said.

Her grandson, Benny, helps at the store, she said.

Wilmoth used to order fudge from the Candy Bouquet corporate office, but she decided to start making her own in May of last year because it took too long for her orders to arrive in Galt.

Wilmoth tried some egg nog to go with her candy at Christmas time, and for St. Patrick's Day, she'll give some green mint fudge a try.

"There's always something busy to keep you going," she said.

Contact reporter Ross Farrow at rossf@lodinews.com.

First published: Monday, February 19, 2007