Recently, I relocated from Southern California, where I resided for decades, to downtown Napa. Around the corner from where I live, standing sentinel on the corner of Main and Clinton, looms a two-story stone building that dates back to the 1800s. Once a brewery, then (perhaps apocryphally) a brothel, then a Chinese laundromat, then a deli, it was taken over in 2002 by former pastry chef Garret Murphy; this charming old building, gutted and beautifully renovated, is now home to the Vintner’s Collective, a tasting room featuring 20 small, local wine producers, most of which vinify fewer than 1,500 cases. Its gorgeous walnut bar downstairs, populated by both wine club members and out-of-town visitors, is a forum of wine-loving conviviality.
Some context: When I was (albeit unwittingly) doing research for my novel Sideways in the late 1990s, I found a romance—and a solace—in wending my way through breathtakingly bucolic scenery in the then-little-known Santa Ynez Valley, hopscotching from one winery to another. Foxen Winery’s tasting room was nothing more than a tool shed, and I loved it! Sanford’s was at the terminus of a dirt-and-gravel road where birdsong greeted me after another soul-crushing week in Hollywood. The rooms were often only open for three hours, and frequently I was the only one at the bar. Tasting fees were nonexistent. Fast-forward a quarter of a century, and wine tasting has become corporatized and expensive: It has lost its magic, its soul. Worse (to me), tasting rooms now often aggregate in one location (Yountville, Carmel, Solvang, Los Olivos) and require appointments as well as an outlay of cash. The romance of motoring through wine country is disappearing.
The Vintner’s Collective, however, has restored my faith in tasting as a locus of discovery. Sure, the journey is from one splash to the next rather than 10 miles on sinuous roads to the next winery, but the spacious bar is alive, stimulating. The wine is serious, yet the atmosphere is reminiscent of a local pub, with an ever-changing cast of characters and dozens of wines—otherwise hard to find—to enjoy.
In the afternoons, after my writing is finished for the day, I’ll meander over and autograph hardcovers of my various Sideways books (there are three sequels to the original). Sure, there are tasting room fees, but they’re more affordable than those charged by the big guns on the Silverado Trail, and the wines are just as if not more thrilling. Winemaker Roger Harrison of Zosia is frequently in the house to pour, and expatiate on, his wines. The Vintner’s Collective, which has grown 60% year over year since its opening, has become the home of cutting-edge small producers who couldn’t afford a venue to showcase their wines—and a magnet for the wine lovers who seek them out. What they are doing is borderline unprecedented, given the scope of their list and the trenchant palate of Murphy.
Without the early days of wine tasting, I don’t think Sideways would ever have been written. I needed that three-day bacchanal with my outgoing friend Roy Gittens to sow the seed of the idea. By the same token, I’m so transfixed by the Vintner’s Collective, its rustic charm, and its sui generis business model that it makes an appearance in my next novel, Sideways Burgundy.
