Feb 11, 2025
Part 2 picks up where we left
off in Part 1. Barbara had just really become settled in San
Francisco and was in what would become a decades-long process of
learning the place (I can totally relate, btw). She hung out in the
Castro more than the Mission, which in those days was a lesbian
mecca. Café Flore (nowadays known as Fisch and Flore) was a favorite.
Eventually, though, Barbara
moved to the Mission. The company she had been contracting with
hired her and that provided the security she needed. She called an
apartment at 19th Street and Dolores, across from Dolores Park,
home. She's quick to point out how different the neighborhood was
back then. "You wouldn't wanna walk through that park at certain
times of the night," she says.
By the time Dolores Park Café
and Bi-Rite opened and that area slowly gentrified, Barbara and her
partner moved west to the Castro. They lived there for a few years
before finally relocating to The Bayview, the neighborhood Barbara
has called home since 1999.
Barbara's foray into winemaking
started, as many things do, as a hobby. A coworker's husband was
making wine at home with friends, and he asked her why, as an
Italian-American, she had never tried it. It was a "challenge
accepted"-type of moment.
1997 was the first year Barbara
made wine. That coworker's husband served as her mentor for about
two years. Having grown up out east, part of her winemaking
education involved learning to enjoy good California wines. The
first wine she made was the first one she fell in love with:
Zinfandel.
The basement of her apartment
on Dolores was a perfectly moldy, dank, dark space for making wine.
They began with garbage-can-size containers of juice, and she and a
friend took turns caring for the fermentation. They'd have bottling
parties with their partners. They split the haul—six cases
each.
The next year, that friend
bailed on her, and Barbara was solo. The year after that, 1999, she
found a new grower. It was an all-Zin affair until 2009, when she
added a Cabernet Sauvignon to her repertoire. For the first decade
or so, the wine was shared with friends, at dinners, at parties,
that sort of thing. Her friends loved her wine, but she wondered
whether they were just being polite.
Then opportunities arose for
folks in The Bayview but outside of her circle of friends to try
her wine. Art 94124 Gallery was one such opportunity. Barbara
served wine at an art opening there and got excellent feedback.
She'd already secured a permit for making wine at her home in The
Bayview. We go into some depth discussing the permit process. After
that, Barbara bumped her volume up to half a ton.
She took her wines to a weekly
market outside the Bayview Opera House, now known
as the Ruth Williams Opera House. It was early in the time of
pop-ups, 2012 or so, but that's what it was. The Bayview Underground Food Scene convened every
Thursday at the opera house from 6 to 9 p.m.
But when the opera house
underwent renovations and the market moved to Pier 70, in Barbara's
words, things "went downhill." Fewer people were willing or able to
make the trek to The Bay. Eventually, it fizzled.
But through that group, Barbara
had met a baker. In 2015, the two decided to open up in the space
where Gratta is today. At first, the wine bar was in back (where it
still is today), but the front was her business partner's bakery.
Today, that space is an Italian goods retail shop that Barbara
runs.
Seven years later, the bakery
moved out. In 2017, Barbara had taken over the space just next door
to the south, the idea being that it could serve as her winery.
They moved everything from the garage in her home to the space
where it is today (also the space where we recorded).
Today,
Gratta Wines and Market comprises a wine bar in back, groceries
and a deli up front, and winery next door. They're located
at 2022 Lane Street/5273 Third Street. And they're open
Tuesday–Thursday 3 p.m.–9 p.m. and Friday–Saturday 12 p.m.–10 p.m.
Barbara hopes to have the winery fully opened by this spring.
Follow Gratta Wines for updates.
We end the podcast with
Barbara's take on our theme this season—Keep It Local.
Photography by Dan Hernandez
We recorded this podcast at the Gratta Wines winery on Third Street in the Bayview in December 2024.