Artsy wine bar takes a natural bent
At Fig & Thistle, the wines match the room: artsy, a little funky, natural-leaning. On one side of the Hayes Valley wine bar, shelves are dotted with languorous-looking plants, the odd candle, a sparkling chunk of amethyst. Just opposite, a bunk bed serves as a seating area. Twinkling lights cast an attractive sepia-tone glow.
You don’t need to look at the menu to know that this is not the sort of place you’ll find 100 percent-new-oak Cabernet. The room screams earthy Gamay. Jalapeño-flavored Cab Franc. Copper-hued Pinot Gris.
The Fig & Thistle aesthetic, in other words, feels fully realized. But that wasn’t the intention of Angel Davis and Nguey Lay when they opened the bar five years ago. In fact, at the time the two didn’t really drink wine at all.
“I was working at a cocktail bar in Portland (Ore.),” says Davis. The extent of the wine selection, she says, “was $6 Rioja by the glass that you
could find at the 7-Eleven down the street.
“We’d open bottles and leave them on the shelf for two weeks. I was like, ‘This stuff is gross. Why do people drink wine?’ ”
Davis had grown up in San Francisco and was considering moving back to be closer to her family. When Lay, a friend since their teenage years, heard she might be moving back, he suggested they open a bar together. After all, Davis was a bartender.
It was only after the two discovered how expensive it would be to obtain a full liquor license that they switched their focus to wine.
So Davis figured she should learn something about the stuff. Before leaving Oregon, she enrolled in a course taught by Erica Landon, owner of Walter Scott Wines in Oregon’s Willamette Valley. That’s where it started to click. “The first wine that I really loved was a Paso Syrah that was completely huge,” Davis recalls. It may not be the sort of wine she serves today at Fig & Thistle, but she credits its loud, rich appeal with awakening a taste for wine.
How did Davis get from boozy Syrah to oxidative whites? She shrugs: “Just by drinking.” But Davis isn’t dogmatic: There’s no sulfite litmus test for the Fig & Thistle wine list. The bar’s selection tends to highlight California, but that’s not a hard-and-fast rule — Oregon, for example, and French wines are known to creep in.
Often, the most polarizing bottles at Fig & Thistle aren’t listed on the menu. A wine like, say, Coturri Nouveau will appear only if the bartender senses your adventurousness. And while you might end up with a seriously funky glass of Angeleno SuperBloom ($13/glass), a natural white blend from Los Angeles, you’re just as likely to end up with Inconnu’s Cabernet Franc-Merlot blend ($15/glass), classic-tasting and not at all polarizing.
The bottle list features both natural-wine darling Arnot Roberts (2015 Sonoma Coast Syrah, $80/bottle) and Napa traditionalist Pahlmeyer (2014 Merlot, $120/bottle). And while there may not be any huge Paso Robles Syrah, there is some fairly big Paso Robles Grenache, the 2011 Late Bloomer from Herman Story ($80/bottle), a relatively plush wine that clocks in at a formidable 15.8 percent alcohol.
“Because we’re so small, we try to give everybody a headsup about what kind of wine they’re drinking,” Davis says. “But you know what? They don’t care! We could pour them the cloudiest thing — this carbonically macerated Albariño from Minimus — and people are happy.”
Six months ago, Davis and Lay took on a new venture: Fig & Thistle Market (691 14th St.), a small shop in the Castro that sells wine, mostly, but also jewelry, plants, clothing and chocolates. “I just wanted to be surrounded by stuff that I like,” says Davis of the eclectic merchandise.
The shop took over the space that had long housed Lay’s grandmother May’s sandwich shop, M&L Market, famous for its rice-cookersteamed pastrami sandwiches. The deli had something of a fanatical following — its “bread first” ordering imperative has become a secret code word in the neighborhood — and Davis says they still get visitors all the time devastated to learn that M&L has closed.
“A woman came in recently, and at first she was angry,” Davis says. “She was like, ‘What did you do to the deli? Where’s Mama May?’ ” When Davis explained that the shop was still in the family, coowned by May’s grandson, the customer broke down in tears, recalling how when she was a child May had given her sandwiches when her family ran out of money.
Now Fig & Thistle Market is trying to create a new family of sorts. The jewelry in the shop is designed by Lay’s wife, Nina. The clothing and handbags are from Oakland company Yes, Crescent, owned by a friend of Davis. The chocolates are from Michael’s Chocolates, a neighbor.
In that spirit, Fig & Thistle, the bar, will soon be lending its space to Billy Duplain, the wine buyer at Gus’ Market on Haight Street, for a pop-up wine bar. Beginning Feb. 15, on Thursday evenings Fig & Thistle will transform into Trundle Bar. The music will change from hip-hop to metal, the wine menu to “whatever Billy wants,” as Davis puts it — all $9 by-the-glass pours.
A wine bar popping up within a wine bar? For Fig & Thistle, it works. “We’re just in this to have a good time,” Davis says. “As long as people are comfortable and happy, we’re doing our job.” To order: Wine by the glass ($11-$15), vermouth flight ($15) Where: Fig & Thistle, 313 Ivy St., S.F. (415) 589-7005 or www.figandthistlesf.com When: 4-11 p.m. Monday Thursday, until midnight Friday-Saturday, and 3-9:30 p.m. Sunday. Special hours for Trundle Bar pop-up beginning Feb. 15: 9:30 p.m.-2 a.m. Thursdays.