The Bay Area is so passionate about wine — and beer, whiskey and gin — even our islands boast tasting rooms. You can sip cabernet on Alameda, do a whiskey tasting on Treasure or dabble in bubbly on Mare Island. Here’s just a sampling of possibilities.
Mare Island
The Golden State boasts plenty of wine passports and ale trails, but only Mare Island has a “Wet Mile” where visitors are encouraged to “Eat like a mare. Drink like a sailor.” It includes a quartet of tempting libation stations, including The Quarters Coffee House and Vino Godfather Winery, Mare Island Brewing’s Coal Shed taproom and the soon-to-open Redwood Empire Whiskey, which is taking over the old Savage & Cooke Distillery.
Vino Godfather Winery at Mare Island is tucked inside one of the historic officers’ quarters built in 1900. (Jackie Burrell/Bay Area News Group)
Head for the island’s historic center, a row of stately two-story homes — officers’ quarters — that date to 1900, rebuilt after a 6.5 earthquake destroyed 14 officers’ residences in 1898. Today, Walnut Avenue feels like such a gracious portal to the past, you expect to hear Sousa wafting from the gazebo across the street.
Sip bubbly or a rosé of grenache on the Vino Godfather Winery’s grand front porch, say, or taste your way through its award-winning, small-batch tempranillo or Prohibition Red in the parlor. There’s live music in the garden nearly every weekend (tickets start at $12) and charcuterie, cheeses and crackers available for purchase in the tasting room.
Details: Walk-ins are welcome at Vino Godfather Winery, which is open Thursday-Sunday at 1005 Walnut Ave. in Vallejo; www.vinogodfather.com.
Vino Godfather Winery at Mare Island is tucked inside one of the historic officers’ quarters built in 1900. (Jackie Burrell/Bay Area News Group)
Urban Legend and Humble Sea, Alameda
Alameda has become quite the destination for tasting rooms, taprooms and distillery tours. You can brewery hop from Humble Sea to Almanac, Faction and more, tour the distillery doings at St. George or taste your way through a flight at a winery — Dashe Cellars, say, or Urban Legend.
The latter, which is owned by techies-turned-winemakers Steve and Marilee Shaffer, does its tastings indoors as well as out on the patio, where stellar water views are paired with wine. So you can sample your way through “a trio” — a three-wine flight of bubbles, say, cabernets or other delights — while you take in the city skyline.
Humble Sea Brewing Co. employee Austin Miller, left, and customer Chris Butler, of San Leandro, drink a Surfsloth and Rye the Whales beer at Humble Sea Brewing Co. in Alameda, Calif., on Thursday, Sept. 7, 2023. (Ray Chavez/Bay Area News Group)
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Santa Cruz’s Humble Sea took over this corner of the former Naval Air Station in 2023, bringing its signature Socks & Sandals IPA, Seasquatch DIPA and laid-back surfer vibe to Alameda. When the weather warms, the umbrella-shaded picnic tables on the sandy patio are the place to be, brew in hand.
Details: Urban Legend is open Friday-Sunday by reservation (walk-ins welcome when space permits) at 1951 Monarch St., Alameda; https://ulcellars.com/. Humble Sea is open daily at 2350 Saratoga St.; https://humblesea.com.
Treasure Island Wines and Gold Bar Distillery, Treasure Island
Treasure Island’s potential as a mecca for wine lovers began in 2007, when brothers Paul and James Mirowski opened their Treasure Island Wines collective on the former U.S. Naval base to produce and showcase small-batch wines.
The warehouse-style building is both production and storage facility, with a laid-back tasting room in front that eschews the self-importance of Napa Valley and features wine that’s relatively affordable. There’s a kid- and dog-friendly picnic patio, too.
The collective sells wines from six other local winemakers. On a recent Sunday, Umbriaso winemaker Dennis Hayes was pouring tastes of his award-winning 2022 Bianco Altopiano, a sauvignon blanc, as he talked about harvesting the grapes from a vineyard in the gorgeous-sounding Mayacamas Mountains on a 2,400-foot-tall plateau.
Prefer spirits? Second-generation Napa Valley winemaker Montgomery Paulsen has opened a retro whiskey tasting room for his brand’s Gold Bar Whiskey in Treasure Island’s historic, art moderne-style Administration Building. The structure served as the administration headquarters for the 1939-40 Golden Gate International Exposition and as the terminal for the Pan Am Clippers flying boats that once landed here.
Today, the tasting room and bar pay tribute to Depression-era jazz clubs, with one wall looking especially rich and shiny: It’s lined with Gold Bar’s signature, 750-ml glass bottles, which are shaped like gold bars and stacked accordingly. Enjoy a “Gold Fashioned” and other takes on classic whiskey cocktails at the bar or expand your knowledge of whiskey mixology with one of the bar’s daily classes and learn to make three iconic cocktails.
Details: Treasure Island Wines is open on weekends at the corner of 995 Ninth St. and Avenue I; www.tiwines.net. The Gold Bar Distillery is open for tastings Tuesday-Sunday at 1 Avenue of the Palms, No. 167. Mixology classes ($79-$89) are offered most days; reserve a spot at https://goldbarwhiskey.com.
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