NAPA, Calif. — Napa Valley and Sonoma County, the most popular destinations for those traveling to Northern California wine country, are full of alluring restaurants. But wine lists that offer both wide selections and good values are not so easy to find.
Some lists are boringly predictable. Others are simply too expensive. That’s not surprising, as Napa Valley and Healdsburg, Calif., a Sonoma city that approaches Napa in luxury and pricing, are difficult to navigate without deep reserves of disposable income. You can’t blame the restaurants if they emphasize top local wines. Good Napa cabernet sauvignon, the Valley’s signature wine, starts around $100 a bottle retail. You are simply not going to find inexpensive examples.
Press in St. Helena, for example, a onetime steakhouse with a far more interesting menu nowadays, has perhaps the greatest list of Napa wines in the world, with many oddities and older examples that you simply won’t find elsewhere. But unless you can drop a few hundred bucks for a bottle, the point is lost.
Top-echelon restaurants, like the French Laundry in Yountville and Single Thread in Healdsburg, have wonderful selections. But these are special-occasion places, where you plan months in advance, spend hours over a meal and likewise expect to spend a small fortune.
Most of the time as a traveler, I want something far less august. I look for an intriguing list with good values, terrific food and a welcoming, relaxed ambience. These sorts of places are there, but not as easy to find.
I’ve been traveling to Northern California as wine critic for nearly 20 years and have developed a collection of favorite restaurants. Not all of them are wine-centric, though.
Here are six of my favorite places to find an excellent glass with your meal, places I’ve visited multiple times and have always left happy. The first three are in Sonoma, the remaining three in Napa.
If you are curious about where the locals eat, or looking for a place without the ostentatious trappings of wine country wealth, consider Glen Ellen Star in a small village just north of the city of Sonoma. It’s a rustic, genial spot, with little décor beyond strands of tiny lights on the ceiling. Along with lovely outdoor seating, the restaurant has two wings — aim for the area with the lively open kitchen and wood-burning oven so you can watch the cooks working.
An emphasis on fine ingredients, simply prepared, sums up the cooking, with occasional Middle Eastern touches and plenty of vegetables, like a crunchy and refreshing radish salad with chicory, dill and trout roe. I’ve enjoyed everything I’ve had that was made in the oven, whether the margherita pizza, with its blistered crust, roasted whole fish or crisp-skinned chicken roasted under a brick, served over polenta with roasted winter vegetables and a caramelized orange slice — a delicious touch. Even housemade smoked trout salad benefits; it came with crisp flatbread straight out of the oven, glistening with olive oil and sesame seeds.
The wine list emphasizes local bottles, mostly from small producers. The selection of reds is particularly extensive, with many reasonably priced options alongside older vintages for those wanting to splurge. I drank a 2017 Royal St. Robert from RAEN on the Sonoma Coast, a sun-kissed but beautifully restrained pinot noir.
13648 Arnold Drive, Glen Ellen, Calif., 707-343-1384, glenellenstar.com.
In Sonoma County, Healdsburg is about as close as it gets to the ostentatious wealth of Napa Valley, as new boutique hotels and expensive clothing shops seemingly open every month. The Matheson, with its rooftop cocktail lounge and sleek, stylish, street-level restaurant, might comfortably fit into Yountville.
I can’t think of a better place in wine country for a lone business traveler than the Matheson. Along with comfortable seating at a handsome, slate-covered bar and excellent California cuisine, the restaurant offers an astounding, futuristic wall of wine, a sort of wine-automat with 88 choices, which you can order by the splash or the half or full glass.
I chose a glass of dry, focused 2021 Calandrelli Vineyard gewürztraminer from Halleck in the Russian River Valley and an appetizer of deeply flavored corn soup, with Oaxacan cheese, cilantro and a fritter that tasted like the essence of a corn tortilla. I added a glass of 2020 Les Noisetiers Sonoma chardonnay from Kistler, with halibut served with pole beans and squid in a mild Thai curry sauce.
The selection of California wines by the glass includes a few too many staid producers, but I’ve always found things I’ve wanted to drink, and the bottle list is far more extensive. For dessert, why not a glass of Sauternes? The last time I visited, Château Rieussec was $24 a glass.
106 Matheson Street, Healdsburg, Calif., 707-723-1106, thematheson.com.
Valley, on Sonoma Plaza, is the sort of place I’d love to have in my neighborhood. It’s a wine bar with a terrific, thoughtful list that leans toward the natural side. It sells bottles retail, too, and it serves a small, seasonal menu of simple foods that are beautifully prepared.
The interior holds just a few tables and a tiny bar. I prefer the tented back patio, a pleasant outdoor space that feels relaxed and welcoming. Valley offers an ever-changing, always excellent crisp, roasted half chicken. I’ve had it served with greens and chile oil, and with Jimmy Nardello peppers and garlic yogurt. In March, I had a wonderful appetizer of charred calçots, slender Catalonian spring onions, served with nutty, tangy romesco sauce. Braised pork was full of flavor under a tangle of leeks and greens.
The list, emphasizing conscientious farming, is roughly divided among small producers from Europe and California, with many bottles under $100. The 15 or so wines by the glass are well chosen. Among the California bottles on the list, I would covet two Central Coast wines: a savagnin-and-chardonnay combination from Phelan Farms in Cambria, and a counoise from Margins in the Santa Clara Valley.
487 First West Street, Sonoma, Calif., 707-934-8403, valleybarandbottle.com.
The Charter Oak in St. Helena in Napa is another warm, inviting bar with an expansive dining room. The food is simple, often grilled over coals in a hearth in the open kitchen, with an emphasis on vegetables grown in the restaurant’s organic farm a few miles away.
Considering the farm, I like to start with a plate of crudités, served with a tangy fermented soy dip. Steaks and fish are terrific, though if I’m on my own sitting at the bar I might opt for a truly great burger, two patties with Cheddar and onions, or terrific pork-collar tacos.
Wines by the glass include California options like a good sparkling rosé from Schramsberg or a Mendocino pinot noir from Lioco, as well as more rarefied wines, like a 2011 Biondi-Santi Brunello di Montalcino or a Maybach Napa Valley cabernet sauvignon, each for $45 a glass.
You can drink comfortably for under $100 from the bottle list, equal parts California and Europe. But if you want to splurge on grand cru Burgundy, Napa cabernet or perhaps explore a vertical of Harlan, a cult Napa cabernet, this is a good place to do it.
1050 Charter Oak Avenue, St. Helena, Calif., 707-302-6996, thecharteroak.com.
When Compline opened in the city of Napa in 2017, it immediately became a destination for wine lovers. This petit restaurant, in a sort of urban shopping complex, offered the type of thorough, deep wine list that you’d expect to find in any wine-oriented population center, but that wine country was sorely lacking. Plenty of restaurants offered lists rich in trophy bottles. Some specialized in California, others in France or Italy. But no place offered the comprehensive panoply found on Compline’s list, including many great values.
You want a great Napa chardonnay? How about a 2020 Kongsgaard for $185, a lot of money but a great price for a wine that routinely retails for around $150. Don’t want to spend that much? Try a 2021 Matthiasson Linda Vista Vineyard for $68. If you want a great older bottle regardless of cost, order a 2008 Philip Togni Spring Mountain cabernet sauvignon for $580.
Maybe something more obscure, like a Napa aligoté, or an El Dorado aglianico? They’re here. So is Burgundy, whether an excellent village Chablis from Moreau Naudet or a grand cru from Raveneau. You get the idea: plenty to drink from all over the world, both under $75 and more than $750.
What makes Compline wonderful is that it’s so unpretentious and welcoming, and the food is great, whether you want a midday hamburger or fried chicken sandwich, or an evening bavette or duck confit.
Compline also offers an appealing outdoor courtyard and, a few doors away, one of the best retail wine shops in Napa Valley.
1300 First Street, No. 312, Napa, Calif., 707-492-8150, complinewine.com.
Torc, a Celtic word meaning boar, is another favorite in the city of Napa. It’s an airy, open room with plenty of stone and timber and a handsome bar, and food that defies categorization.
Is it contemporary American? California cuisine? I’m not sure, but it’s awfully good, with little South Asian touches, like a papadum wafer with a lovely beet salad, or coconut basmati rice with grilled scallops. I loved a dish of lumache, snail-shaped pasta, in a sumptuous Mornay sauce with Comté and shreds of ham in a drift of black truffles.
The wine list, nicely divided between American and European selections, offers terrific values at every price level. I can’t imagine another restaurant in wine country, or anywhere, really, with such an enticing selection of bottles under $60. Torc is also the rare restaurant with great selections of half bottles — you can have a lovely dinner for two with a half of Puligny-Montrachet from Domaine de Montille and another of Mineral Springs Ranch pinot noir from Soter Vineyards in the Willamette Valley in Oregon — and a terrific list of sweet wines, by the half bottle or by the glass. For me, that’s a perfect way to end a meal.
1140 Main Street, Napa, 707-252-3292, torcnapa.com.
