Cork & Barrel, the midsummer KIDS Center benefit, will launch its fourth annual event series tonight, featuring the wines of California’s Santa Barbara County.

In each of its first three years, Cork & Barrel has highlighted a different West Coast wine region: Washington’s Walla Walla area in 2013, Oregon’s Willamette Valley in 2014 and Northern California’s Napa Valley last year. This year, the event moves yet further south, to the rolling hills and marked microclimates of the Central Coast wine region.

Eleven different wineries are scheduled to participate, all of them from the Santa Ynez and Santa Rita valleys that run northwest from metropolitan Santa Barbara, California.

In support of KIDS Center — an agency that evaluates and treats child abuse — four different winemaker dinners will be held tonight at locations across the Bend area. Each five-course dinner, with wine pairings for no more than 40 guests, is priced at $100 per person. Reservations may be placed online at corkandbarrel.org.

Scheduled to cook are:

Bette Fraser, owner of The Well Traveled Fork, at The Sparrow Bakery in NorthWest Crossing, accompanied by Martellotto Winery.

Joe Kim, chef and co-owner of 5 Fusion & Sushi Bar, at his own restaurant in downtown Bend, accompanied by Sanford Winery.

Kevin Linde, executive chef at the Pronghorn Club, at Pronghorn in northeast Bend, accompanied by Brewer-Clifton and Casa Dumetz wineries.

O.J. Robinson, executive chef at Portland’s Benson Hotel, at a private Bend home, accompanied by Presqu’ile and Turiya wineries.

Friday, under a tent at the Broken Top Club, Kim and Robinson will join chefs Cliff Eslinger of 900 Wall and Zac Hoffman of the Tetherow resort in a small-bite sampling at A Sip of Cork & Barrel. All 11 winemakers will provide tastings of 36 wines. Supplementing the wine-and-food round-robin will be wine-themed games of chance, a silent auction and a handbag raffle. Tickets for the 4:30 p.m. event are priced at $75 per person.

The final event, also at the Broken Top Club, is a Saturday-night Grand Cru Dinner and Auction, with tickets priced at $200 per person. A wine-tasting reception, with appetizers from chef Steve Helt of Zydeco and Bistro 28, will be followed at 6:30 p.m. by a five-course wine-pairing dinner prepared by chef George Tate of Tate & Tate Catering. A live auction will give diners a chance to buy everything from a tour of Jay Leno’s private car collection to a miniature red Australian labradoodle puppy.

Coastal wines

Three of the wineries at Cork & Barrel represent the Santa Maria Valley, the first official American Viticultural Area (AVA) in Santa Barbara County. All three of them — the Cambria Estate, Nielson and Presqu’ile Winery — will (not surprisingly) offer the pinot noirs and chardonnays that do especially well with the ocean breezes of this hill country.

Nielson, in fact, will serve two pinots and a chardonnay; Cambria will offer a syrah as well as a pinot and chardonnay.

Presqu’ile (pronounced “press-keel”) will serve not only its flagship varietals, but also a sauvignon blanc and a pinot noir rosé for summer sipping.

Similarly blessed with sea breezes are the Santa Rita Hills, near Lompoc on the western border of the Santa Ynez Valley AVA. Brewer-Clifton produces exclusively pinot noir and chardonnay, and will offer tastes of each; the Sanford Winery will pour a chardonnay and three different pinot noirs, along with a rosé of pinot. A neighboring small-production winery, Turiya, will change it up with a malbec, a petit verdot and a blend of the two red grapes.

Santa Barbara County’s oldest wine region is Los Olivos, and it still has the highest concentration of vineyards and wineries. Artiste will show off a couple of its red blends, a cabernet franc-petit verdot and a syrah-tempranillo. Sunstone Vineyards also will taste a pair of wines, a merlot and a viognier.

The unique soils and microclimates of Ballard Canyon, near Los Alamos in the heart of Santa Ynez, allow the successful production of a wide variety of wines. Casa Dumetz, which specializes in jammy grenache, will display that grape by itself and in a GSM blend with syrah and mourvèdre; its menu also includes a syrah rosé and a floral roussanne. The Martian Ranch will offer a medium-bodied gamay noir, a Spanish albariño and a rosé of mourvèdre.

That leaves Martellotto, based in Buellton, but sourcing from vineyards in several sections of the AVA, including the higher slopes of Happy Canyon at the edge of the San Rafael Mountains. The winery will serve three reds — cabernet sauvignon, merlot and pinot noir — as well as a dry rosé and an Italian-style pinot grigio.

My seat tonight will be at O.J. Robinson’s dinner, with wines from Presqu’ile and Turiya. Tasting notes tell me the Presqu’ile 2013 Santa Maria pinot noir will have balance, complexity and a “spice-driven character.” I’m curious what that may be.

— John Gottberg Anderson specializes in Northwest wines. His column appears in GO! every other week. He also writes for our food section.