Can Dave Phinney turn a SF island into a hipster Napa altrernative?

Do we really need more “island tasting rooms”? I don’t think so :slight_smile:

We already have Treasure Island with a half dozen wine tasting rooms and a couple of restaurants.

And then there’s the Alameda Island Air Naval Station “Spirits Alley” - https://www.alamedaca.gov/RESIDENTS/Visiting-Alameda/Attractions-in-Alameda/Spirits-Alley

What do you think?

Picturesque Vallejo adjacent. Maybe I can get Stop The Bleed Kits in the tasting rooms for the inevitable GSWs.

I think it would be awesome if Vallejo-based island tasting rooms took off and fewer people were congesting Napa Valley.

I think it’s obvious that a lot of people don’t really make a big distinction between tasting rooms on the winery production property as opposed to in removed locations. Personally, I am far less inclined to go to the latter. However, I think it can be a successful model as the tasting can be brought closer to the population center, so it becomes a riff on a wine bar. Also, by consolidating smaller spaces in one locale, they can spend less on buildout AND cumulatively get a critical mass to attract visitors.

But Napa is like Disneyland.

How much traffic will a miniature Wally’s World take away?

For a couple to fork over $100-$250 to taste through 3 or 4 wines at a winery rather than say $60 at a removed location is a lot to ask. I like the idea of a tasting room on Mare Island. If I made a little extra cash one paycheck, I might be willing to splurge on a taste and tour at say Continuum, but then I wouldn’t be able to buy any wines, let alone a bottle. Absolutely none of my friends would justify spending that much to taste either. It’s getting out of hand how much it costs to taste high end wine in Napa. Something like this as an alternative is a great idea for people who enjoy wine and are on a middle to lower middle class budget.

Seems a natural progression that Dave would turn to making booze. High alcohol wine wasn’t enough!

I don’t go to Napa often, except with out-of- town friends. Downtown Napa isn’t bad, but I stay away from the Valley.

I’m on a more middle class budget and can’t afford high end Napa cabs or their tasting rooms.

I much prefer Sonoma, Amador or Paso Robles for tasting which are much more accessible.

I grew up running around Mare Island end to end. It would be great to see more tasting rooms there besides Vino Godfather (which uses Suisun grapes for its whites btw).

To me the key is the ferry ride from SF. We live in the Napa valley and there are a lot of folks come Saturday/Sunday late afternoon that probably wished they hadn’t driven up from the city.

First and foremost Mare Island is a real estate development project. Adding in a few tasting rooms could work if the development is successful. The Bay is going to continue to get developed wherever possible. Pressure on real estate in this market is vast.

Right on the Bay is a great selling point. The massive local Superfund clean up up site (now a wetlands/Park … not sure I’d want to live next to it) and views of the Richmond oil refinery complex are issues though.

If the island becomes an attractive place to live and visit (still an open question) then there’s no reason tasting rooms can’t be successful. But it seems like a pretty high risk bet.

^ This ^

My Son and DIL used to live on the hill overlooking Mare Island just across the Parkway. They said that on numerous occasions they heard bullets whiz by them. Only good can come from this project. The entire area has been getting a huge facelift over the past 20 years.

I worked one summer at MareIsland in 1964. That was when they were still building SSBN/boomers. SSBN Woodrow Wilson and SSBN Daniel Boone were dockside being fitted.
SSN Scorpion was dockside in overhaul. SSBN Kamahmea was on the ways, not yet launched. I almost got to go out on the sea trials of WoodrowWilson. Adm.Rickover always
went on the sea trials of a new boat, so I got to see the last minute winching of Rickover aboard as it revved up its engines and set sail.
It’s a beautiful old-timey property that has a huge potential. There are some new housing developments on the Island. Some of the old officers quarters are absolutely
beautiful…but probably loaded w/ asbestos and needing remediation. The little chapel in the woods is special. And lots of industrial going on. And Turino Univ is located
there. The MareIsland Museum is worth visiting.
Back in 2005, there was a huge wine warehouse there on MareIsland that was torched by the owner to collect insurance. Some 250M$ loss. Some wineries lost their
entire libraries of wines, including JulieJohnson/TresSabores and DeliaViader.
Whenever I’m travelling North from Oakland/Berkeley to wine country, I almost always take a short detour thru MareIsland. Brings back some fond memories
of the Summer I spent there in my callow youth (which, I should point out…was not all that long ago!!).
Tom

^This^

Gentrification isn’t always a bad thing.

Tom, not sure if you are of the same vintage as me but I spent almost 2 years in the Navy at Mare Island overhauling our submarine - SSN 592. Went through separations on Treasure Island and came back to Mare Island for my first civilian job at the shipyard as a nuke test engineer. Lived in the marina across the mouth of the Napa river. The island was a big industrial complex back then (1978 - 1980). Hard to visualize tasting rooms there.

Kelly,
Sounds like we were there about the same time. I was there in Summer of 1964 (I think). 592 is the Snook and that was the one being overhauled
when I was there, not the Sculpin. Or maybe they were both there. When I was there, it was after the Thresher was lost and it had been
determined that it sunk due to a failure of the sil-braised joints in one of the systems and there was a lot of looking at those joints.
I was not involved in that, mostly on the WoodrowWilson & Daniel Boone outfitting. That was before completing my Sr yr in NuclearEngineering
at Kansas State. Three of us from KSU were there that Summer and we stayed downtown in the venerable Hotel Vallejo, which is now
a nursing home.
I still have a pen&pencil set with the SSN Snook logo & name on it. I’ll give it to you if you want it.
If you haven’t visited the MareIsland Shipyard Museum, you should.
Tom

Kelly,
I do have a Snook pen&pencil set. You can have them if you want.
I also have a Sculpin p&p set, plus a patch. So Sculpin was also in for overhaul when I was there.
Tom

Kelly,
Right now the only wine tasting room on the island is located in one of the venerable old officers houses, just across from the ‘missile park’ if you know where that is.

Tom, I would actually love to take you up on that offer. I have so little memorabilia from my service on the Snook. So many memories, some I cannot really share. My first job as a civilian there was cutting the reactor compartment out of the Nautilus. And then my old boat Tautog coming in for a SG cleaning. Way off topic…sorry.