San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Famed Napa winemaker takes over historic building for edgy tasting room
Maverick best known for the Prisoner has new project with options at a range of price points
Dave Phinney doesn’t create brands to fit in. He designs them to break out.
The maverick California vintner is probably best known for the Prisoner, a blend of Zinfandel with unheard-of partners (Cabernet Sauvignon, Petite Sirah, Syrah and Charbono) that he created more than two decades ago. The wine launched the entire category of “miscellaneous red blends” (insanely popular still, if ill-defined). And the indelible label — a chainbound prisoner originally sketched by Spain’s Francisco de Goya — captured a generation of avant-garde wine lovers.
But Phinney had already established edgy design credentials with Orin Swift Cellars, the iconoclastic hit brand he launched in 1998. And now, after years of pouring the wine in a slip of a tasting room on St. Helena’s Main Street, Phinney has expanded into the historic building next door. And with multiple experiences offered in the new combined spaces, the menu comes close to offering something few wineries in Napa Valley have managed: tastings sized to a range of wallets, in high-design surroundings.
In this major Main Street remodel, Orin Swift’s original narrow storefront catches your eye first, boarded up as it appears with old newspapers, the windows seemingly pierced through with a swath of antique scissors. Startling — bordering on alarming — but strictly to city code. It’s considered an art installation.
But the imposing space next door — originally St. Helena’s Bank of Italy, dating to the 1920s — anchors Orin Swift now. The 1970s faux facade has been stripped off, uncovering the striking Art Deco structure underneath.
The main entrance leads you into the “bank,” with its vaulted ceilings, 3-foot-thick exposed walls, Corinthian-like columns and bar topped with back-lit bottles. Phinney’s edgy design sense — born of the punk rock, surfing and skateboarding cultures he grew up in — is the vibe of the space.
While Phinney is the mind behind Orin Swift wines, labels and every detail of the new spaces, he wasn’t alone in the monumental build-out. In 2016, wine giant E. & J. Gallo acquired the brand, contracting with Phinney to remain its creative force — a contract he’s just renewed.
The vintner’s creative license, on full display here, was core to the relationship from the outset. “I remember saying to Ernest (Gallo),” recalled Phinney, “I want to be the speedboat to your oil tanker. And without missing a beat, he says, ‘I want you to be the Jet Ski to our oil tanker!’”
So Phinney has been able to scratch his creative itch on a macro scale now with Orin Swift, starting with acute attention to detail in restoring the space itself. “I wanted this sandblasted with oyster shells,” he said, pointing at a wall. “It’s not just how you sandblast, it’s what you sandblast with.”
A trifecta of tastings on the menu goes to the core of Phinney’s long-standing mission to make the wine world a little more egalitarian. “We wanted to be super inclusive,” he said.
“As you know,” he continued, stating the obvious, “the valley’s gotten very expensive. So we have almost a small, medium and large — Rock, Paper, Scissors,” he said, naming the three tastings. (And yes, he grew up playing the game with friends.)
Consider Rock ($45) the entry level: You can walk in sans appointment and taste three or four wines at the bar. Paper ($60) is a 60-minute sit-down tasting in an adjacent lounge space, a deeper dive into somewhat more serious (read, more expensive) wines — available by reservation.
It’s with Scissors ($125; opening Nov. 11, but reservations are available now online) that things start to get mysterious — a little Studio 54-ish — behind that scissors-pierced window in the original Orin Swift space. There’s no front door. If you make reservations for the experience (required), someone will meet you at the bar, lead you past curious tasters on the patio outback, and let you in through a locked gate.
The mystery centers on the wines, many of which Phinney has created — and will continue to create — for Scissors tasters alone. Take All Grown Up, for instance, a 2021 Cabernet Sauvignon ($250, and yes, that’s young Dave Phinney on the label). It’s a one-off, and when it’s gone, it’s gone.
The wines ($150 to $300) will constantly evolve, as the small lots sell out, so you’ll never know what you’ll get the next time you’re whisked through that locked gate.
1321 Main St., St. Helena. 10 a.m.-5 p.m. daily. orinswift.com