Napa Valley's big little disruptor

In the perfectly ordered landscape of Napa Valley, the quirky Tank Garage winery is shaking up the status quo

- Ruma Singh

During a summer visit to Napa Valley, California, earlier this year, after I had tasted superbly structured Cabernets and technically perfect white wines over four action-packed days, I wanted something different.

I wanted a little disruption.

That is when I recalled that chef-sommelier-writer Alan Tardi had mentioned, during a webinar, the Tank Garage winery in Napa's Calistoga as noteworthy for its highly-rated, low-intervention wines from a range of little-known grapes. It sounded like just what I was looking for.

Tank Garage, I soon discovered, was Napa's coolest winery and tasting room, repurposed from a 1930s-era garage and petrol station, complete with bright green gas tanks. Visitors often mistake it for a petrol station.

In Napa's small, tight-knit super-premium winemaking community, Tank Garage is something of an oddball. If the Napa playbook is all about glass-wrapped tasting rooms offering superbly structured Cabernets, Tank Garage is about limited-production blends sourced from a handful of California vineyards; just 25,000 cases of wine annually spread over 25-30 unique one-off labels which are never repeated, no matter how successful.

The tasting room is also one-of-a-kind.

The décor, with music and dim lighting, reflects a distinctly retro vibe: A bright red Indian motorbike that belonged to the erstwhile garage owner and daredevil racer Eddie Bratton occupies a corner, while several repurposed gas can guitars (yes, they play music) line the walls, along with Prohibition-era black and white photographs.

The glasses are expensive stemless Gabriel-Glas and the service crew, all ripped jeans and tattoos, is armed with serious wine qualifications. There is no dark suit or tastevin in sight.