Food

A Napa Destination From Two Impressive Wine Veterans

Careful: You May Learn Something

By Joe Starkey ·
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Photo: Michael David Rose Photography

There's good news and bad news today.

First, the bad news: it looks like you'll need to drive to Napa.

And now, the good news: it looks like you'll need to drive to Napa.

Because you've really got to see Compline Wine Bar, Restaurant and Merchant, the love child of a former Charlie Trotter wine director and a French Laundry alum/Master Sommelier, now open and looking exactly like this.

You'll enter through the wine shop, making notes for later about the 100+ bottles priced between $9-$35. Then make your way past the bar and through a fourteen-foot glass airplane hanger door to the outdoor patio. Because you don't get to do that often enough.

While soaking in the Napa sun, you'll pick something from the 300+ bottle list, procuring advice on what pairs best with this menu overseen by a Spago alum. Will your Cab go better with the flank steak or the salt-crusted whole fish? Of course, you know already. You're just getting into the spirit of things.

But if you do seek greater knowledge, this place will have a Master Sommelier teach classes on Napa wine here starting in October.

It'd be pretty weird if he was teaching AP Bio.

Joe Starkey

Joe Starkey is the tallest person in the room 90% of the time. He enjoys liquors that aren’t smoky, dive bars that are, and has a vague dread that someone, somewhere might be having more fun than him.

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