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San Francisco Chronicle​

A new style of wine tasting room is popping up all over the Bay Area

Passaggio Wines is suddenly the busiest bar in town — except it's technically not a bar. Located at the Jack London Village, the historic saw mill-turned-shopping center in the sleepy Sonoma County city of Glen Ellen, Passaggio is a wine tasting collective that's posing as the hot new local watering hole. For years, the village's old-timey and Golden Gate Bridge-hued compound has failed to lure in many tourists on their way to the nearby state park or one of the area's many wine estates. But now, Passaggio's packed and lively creekside patio is compelling weekend drivers to pull over. Once inside, they can choose from dozens of wines from seven, sustainability-minded Sonoma producers they've likely never heard of. Rebranded to 'Passaggio and Company' earlier this year, the space is just one in an exciting new wave of collective wine tasting rooms, or winery co-ops, spurred by the industry's downturn. Wineries are desperate to market their wines yet minimize costs. And while the concept — a group of small wineries, typically ones that can't afford to open their own tasting room, join forces in one setting — has been around for the better part of a decade, this resurgence looks different. The newest collectives are less traditional and tourist-centric than in the past. While they are licensed as tasting rooms, they function more like an informal wine bar. Standard wine tastings have been 'going by the wayside,' said Passaggio founder Cindy Cosco, who works with several grape varieties, like Tannat, Aglianico and Alicante Bouschet, that are hard to find in California. She moved Passaggio into the village two years ago, and recently invited some like-minded wineries to join her. 'Locals just want to come hang out and have a good time gathering with friends,' she continued. 'I'm very excited about what we're creating here. It's bringing a lot of people into this complex.' At Passaggio, where a sign out front reads 'wine bar,' you order by the glass (from $10) or bottle, not flight. No one will come to your table and interrupt your conversation to talk about soil types, brix levels or malolactic fermentation. You won't be told what you should be smelling or tasting. Instead, you can relax on the patio and listen to the babble of the creek — or live music if it's a Saturday. Kids and dogs are welcome. Bring your own food, or order from Yeti, the charming Indian-Napalese restaurant that opened in the village in 2008. Some days, the winemakers mingle and share their stories. One of those winemakers is Joel Peterson, who founded California Zinfandel pioneer Ravenswood in 1976. Peterson sold the winery in 2001 and launched Once and Future, a return to his original Ravenswood vision of small lot, single-vineyard Zinfandel crafted with old world techniques, in 2014. (He also recently helped Gallo relaunch the Ravenswood brand after a five-year hiatus.) 'These long, sit-down tastings that last two to three hours have always mystified me,' Peterson said. 'It's antithetical to sharing wine.' Passaggio's model, however, reminds him of the early days of the California wine boom. 'Sonoma was a very different place when I entered the business. We were the 30 musketeers — all for one and one for all. We shared equipment, we'd share ideas and there was more closeness among the wineries,' he said. 'The wine business has gotten quite corporate and it's a very different feel than one guy at a winery with a determination to do something special. This begins to set the tone for that again.' Ten minutes away and one block off the Sonoma Plaza, another tasting collective has 'bar' in its name and looks exactly like one. Dos' Bar, which opened in 2024, is comprised of six natural wine and cider brands (with three more joining soon). The group includes hybrid grape variety specialist North American Press and Caleb Leisure Wines, whose namesake founder was inspired by the Republic of Georgia and ferments his wines in clay vessels known as qvevri. Dos' Bar's design was inspired by Gold Country saloons, like Stormy's in Petaluma or Sonoma's Swiss Hotel. 'That's the era where the spirit was most intense. Everybody was feeling inspired and making things,' said Dos' co-founder and cidermaker Aaron Brown. 'The tasting room (typically has) sectional couches, LED lighting and a hushed atmosphere where someone is hovering over you. We wanted a place that feels like a pub in Europe or a coffee shop.' The goal with Dos' was to ramp up the presence of Sonoma's natural wine scene beyond Scribe Winery, now open to members only, and Valley Bar + Bottle, where you 'can't just hang out indefinitely,' said Brown, because it's a restaurant. 'We were sort of walking around invisibly in a place where our wines are from, but economically, none of us could do this on our own,' he continued. 'We wanted to do something that we could manage ourselves.' But Dos' evolved to solve another problem. 'There's nowhere to hang out. Sonoma lacked a place for people to be,' Brown continued. 'Really, Dos' is beyond wine. When we have events, it's maxed out. It's really fun to see the different walks of Sonoma intersecting.' Dos' past winemaker events have included local artists, a tarot card reader, musicians and food popups, like Lo-Fi Oyster Co. and mortadella sandwich purveyor Eugene's. The tasting room has hosted industry nights, Español Night (where patrons were encouraged to speak Spanish in homage to Sonoma's rich Mexican heritage), pumpkin carving and equinox celebrations. Yet while these collectives are intentionally bucking tradition, private tastings with the winemakers can be booked in advance. Since joining Passaggio, which also offers a mixed wine flight ($25), Topophilia Wine Co. founder Jess Wade said that with one exception, he's had 'at least one person in each group' join his wine club after a tasting. 'I think people appreciate a more relaxed, casual environment,' he said. 'There's not this stuffiness about things. Wine doesn't have to be that.' The River Club Napa, which opened last summer, feels the most traditional of the newcomers in setup, as seated tastings are offered by appointment. Yet the industrial, riverfront space — which houses just two wine brands, Paper Planes and Belong Wine Co. — is an antidote to the stereotypical Napa Valley tasting room: It's affordable, it doesn't pour Cabernet Sauvignon and it welcomes children, even providing a play area. Like its cohorts, the River Club gets creative with events; most recently, it launched 'Office Hours' on Thursdays, which turns the tasting room into a makeshift coworking space with wines by the glass. This summer, another co-op tasting room will open in Lafayette, down the block from the new Horn Barbecue. Named Local Vines, it will focus on wines made from the small and little-known Lamorinda wine region, which stretches from the backside of the Berkeley Hills to the Walnut Creek border. Local Vines will share the space with an incubator kitchen, geared at helping 'young chefs trying to get their businesses off the ground,' said Local Vines general manager Piettro Buittitta, who also owns Prima Materia Vineyard & Winery. Buttitta closed his Oakland tasting room earlier this year, where he regularly hosted dinner parties, and can envision bringing those to Local Vines. He's belonged to a few collectives throughout his career and recalled that in the early days of the trend, things were 'very basic, just the nuts and bolts of 'Here are five wines.'' 'I think there was a different mindset then,' he continued. 'Maybe you didn't realize 15 years ago that you could have a Vietnamese street food event going on at the same time (as wine tasting), but there's a very valuable community aspect to cross-pollination.'