Local Vines owners Larry and Esther Thal  (Vera Kochan)
Itâs been several years in the making, but Local Vines, Lamorindaâs new wine tasting venue, has finally opened its doors in Lafayette. Located in the former Napa Auto Parts location at 3393 Mt. Diablo Blvd., the inviting and classy ambiance is a far cry from the buildingâs previous incarnation.
More than seven years ago, the Lamorinda Winegrowers Association (LWGA) wanted to open a place where the areaâs burgeoning industry could show off its wares at a local level. Â Having earned the moniker of American Viticulture Area, this seemed like the next step. Â Current membership includes approximately 100 wine growers and associates (those who are interested in all things wine-related). Â LWGA co-founder Joao Magalhaes made certain that the dream of opening a tasting venue was written into the groupâs mission statement.
Taking it one step further, in a December 2016 proclamation to the LWGA, signed by Contra Costa County Supervisors Candace Andersen and John Gioia, the challenge was made for the group to come up with a tasting venue to show off the areaâs award-winning wines.
According to Local Vines owner, Lafayetteâs Larry Thal of Thal Vineyards, he and his wife Esther began developing the location just before COVID struck. Â âGetting permits during that time was a slow process. Â We didnât have to build a new building â it was originally built in 1948. We took what was here and remodeled it.â Â While the tasting room is on the first floor, the winery is in the basement and has the capacity to produce 2,500 cases. Â Right next door is the future location of Germinate Kitchen â a catering company co-owned by Amy Schofield and Marisa Swartz, who will eventually provide small bites to Local Vines customers.
âWe also hope to have cooking classes, wine pairings, corporate events, and more,â added Thal.
The Thals wanted to create an atmosphere where folks could taste outstanding wine, so any wines served had to pass muster by submitting their product to Local Vinesâ independent wine board for review. âWe donât want to discourage any wineries from selling with us,â stated Thal. âHowever, any wine on the premises must be licensed by the state and federal government.â
At the moment, Local Vines has an impressive roster of labels to taste with nine wineries and one cider. Â Featured are: Crane Terrace Winery, Deer Hill Vineyards, Los Arabis Vineyards, Meadow View Winery, Raisin dâEtre Vineyards, Rancho Del Hambre Vineyard, Reliez Valley Vineyards, Stag Hill Vineyards, Thal Vineyards, and Mount Diablo Cider Company.
The Local Vines Wine Board includes: Â Vlatka Stampar Bathgate, a Certified Sommelier whose family owned a vineyard in Croatia and who earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Enology (Wine Science); Jenny Fry a graduate of California Culinary Academy in San Francisco who decided to direct her interests to the field of wine sales with restaurants; Susan Winchester a Certified Specialist of Wine who combines her interests with food and wine after gaining experience working for Napa wineries; Pietro Buttitta, a Certified Sommelier and Local Vines winemaker with 25 years experience in the food and wine industry; and Bill English, an award-winning winemaker with 25 years in the industry.
A Local Vines press release stated, âThe vision for Local Vines and Germinate Kitchen is to create a community space where people can learn about and enjoy wine, and to highlight Lamorinda AVA wines as a day trip destination for micro batch, urban wines and ciders. Â A highlight of the space is the separation of the tasting room and commercial kitchen by a glass divider, thus breaking down the fourth wall and demystifying artisan food production.â
Esther Mobley, Senior Wine Critic Fri, December 12, 2025 at 4:00 AM PST
Kelci Wihera, right, speaks with a customer in the Local Vines tasting room in Lafayette. (Don Feria/For the S.F. Chronicle)
Winemaker Pietro Buttitta has a pitch for the new tasting room he opened this week in the East Bay: “It’s Napa but closer, if you live here.”
The Lafayette tasting room, Local Vines, features nine wineries and one cidery from the growing region known as Lamorinda – a portmanteau of Lafayette, Moraga and Orinda. Many residents may not realize that the area surrounding these three municipalities is home to roughly 100 vineyards, with grape varieties ranging from Cabernet Sauvignon to Sangiovese.
As California wine regions go, Lamorinda is nascent. Although wine grapes were grown here as early as the 1880s, it wasn’t until 2005 that it got its first commercial winery. In 2016, it became an American Viticultural Area (AVA), a geographic designation for wine regions regulated by the federal government. All of Lamorinda’s wineries and vineyards are miniscule, many of them literal backyard projects: Those 100 vineyards comprise a total of about 120 acres.
Local Vines is located on Mount Diablo Boulevard in Lafayette. (Don Feria/For the S.F. Chronicle)
The opening of Local Vines, at 3393 Mount Diablo Blvd., Lafayette, marks a major step forward for the Lamorinda AVA, not only in consumer visibility but also in wine quality. In an unusual sort of co-op model, most of the wines poured in the tasting room are also made in the basement cellar. Buttitta, an experienced winemaker best known for his Italian-focused brand Prima Materia, acts as the consulting winemaker for all of those made onsite. These wineries each have their own labels, but Buttitta also siphons some of their juice into Local Vines’ house brand, Stag Hill Vineyards, a representation of the entire AVA.
Winemaker Pietro Buttitta, left, looks on as Debbie Harley, center, smells a wine at the Local Vines tasting room in Lafayette. (Don Feria/For the S.F. Chronicle)
“I’m here because I believe in the potential of Lamorinda,” said Buttitta, who has been focusing on Local Vines since shutting down Prima Materia’s Oakland tasting room in March. (He still makes Prima Materia wines, albeit in smaller quantities, sourced largely from his family’s vineyard in Lake County.)
Microclimates within Lamorinda’s five-by-seven-mile expanse vary “wildly,” Buttitta said. The western edges, abutting the Berkeley Hills near Orinda, are the coolest and foggiest stretches, with pockets of volcanic soils; Pinot Noir does well here. Cabernet Sauvignon and other Bordeaux varieties fare well on the eastern side, which borders Walnut Creek to the north and the Livermore wine region to the south. In the middle is Moraga, where fog moves in and out and structured reds like Merlot, Syrah and Sangiovese thrive. On the whole, Buttitta said, Lamorinda is stronger for red wines than whites.
Operating a commercial winery here isn’t easy. Farming costs are high – of the six local vineyard management companies, Buttitta said, none has a tractor – and all of the vines need to be covered in protective netting to prevent birds, skunks, wild turkeys, raccoons and foxes, which run rampant in these residential neighborhoods, from eating the grapes. The area lacks the wine-industry infrastructure found in areas like Napa and Sonoma, which is why the shared Local Vines winery – owned by Larry Thal, of Lafayette’s Thal Vineyards – has been such a game changer.
“There’s definitely a lot of local curiosity,” Buttitta said. During harvest season, when he was crushing the grapes outdoors behind the Local Vines building, he was regularly approached by curious neighbors who expressed interest in trying the local wines.
Local Vines features wines and ciders from 10 producers in the Lamorinda AVA. (Don Feria/For the S.F. Chronicle)
Visitors to Local Vines will be able to choose from a range of four-pour flights ($10-$13), including a white wine flight and a “big reds” flight. A cider option ($8) includes four pours from the resident cidery, Mount Diablo Cider Co. At the moment, there’s no food, though Buttitta said the team hopes to add a menu of small bites and to eventually host special dinners.
Thal has installed a board of three wine experts to ensure quality levels at the tasting room: Vlatka Stampar Bathgate, a certified sommelier who has worked at wineries in Napa and her native Croatia; Jenny Fry, manager and wine director of Pasta Moon in Half Moon Bay; and Susan Winchester, director of national accounts for Winebow Imports. The three of them taste through all potential Lamorinda wines and either approve or reject them for the tasting room.
Rancho del Hambre’s SoRho Carolyn red blend. (Don Feria/For the S.F. Chronicle)
So how are the wines? Variable, based on my recent experience. Several Lamorinda reds tasted like dried figs and prunes – in other words, overripe – with alcohol levels exceeding 15%. If the producers were going for big reds, they overshot it. Others were more restrained and pleasant, showing fresh-fruit flavors and firm structure. My favorite was Rancho del Hambre’s 2022 SoRho Carolyn (“SoRho” being an abbreviation of “Southern Rhone”), a blend of Syrah, Grenache, Mourvedre, Cinsault and Carignan. It was juicy and textured, with crunchy strawberry and pomegranate notes and a subtle echo of Mourvedre-inflected funk. At 13.7% alcohol, it was in balance.
Bottles of Mount Diablo Cider Co. (Don Feria/For the S.F. Chronicle)
The Mount Diablo Cider Co. bottlings are also impressive, and a refreshing departure from heavy, structured reds. Its Delta Gold, a Champagne-method cider, has delightfully tiny bubbles and a burst of fresh apple character; a blend of quince and Granniwinkle apples is floral and audaciously tart, sending a jolt across the tongue.
There’s a long way to go before Lamorinda can compete with a place like Napa, acknowledged Buttitta, who has been in his consulting role here since the fall of 2024. (Many of the wines currently being poured at Local Vines are from vintages preceding his arrival.) He’d like to see the growers’ association invest in an even larger, industrial winemaking facility – the downstairs cellar at Local Vines will max out at a mere 2,000 cases – and bring in a marketing team.
“I believe every vineyard deserves a chance,” Buttitta said. And he hopes that Lafayette, Moraga and Orinda residents will rally behind their local wine industry as it evolves. “I think people want to support small businesses. And these are all really small businesses.”
Local Vines. Open 2-7 p.m. Wednesday-Sunday. 3393 Mount Diablo Blvd., Lafayette. 925-298-5109 or local-vines.com
LAFAYETTE, CALIFORNIA â Iâll confess that I lived in Lamorinda for years before I learn that weâre actually an official wine region.
The Lamorinda AVA was recognized as a California wine-growing region in 2016. There are over 40 vineyards operating in Lamorinda.
But most are tinyâproducing perhaps a few hundred cases per year. Theyâre tucked into peoplesâ backyards, or their suburban hillsides. Most offer tastings by appointment only. Sometimes, youâre tasting wines in someoneâs kitchen.
Now, a new, hyperlocal wine tasting room seeks to change that. Local Vines (3393-3395 Mt Diablo Blvd, Lafayette) just had it soft opening this month, and is preparing for a grand opening.
Credit: Local Vines
Itâs located on Mount Diablo Blvd right in downtown Lafayette, and itâs pouring wines made as close as a few blocks away.
Local Wines. Like, Really Local
Local Vines sits in a new building on Mount Diablo Boulevard, in the same stretch of downtown as Wine Thieves and the new Horn Barbecue location. Signage on the building calls it âLocal Vines Tasting Room & Winery,â and licensing paperwork points to Deer Hill Vineyards as a key player behind the project. (We have a big list of the wines theyâre pouring below).
Instead of being a single wineryâs tasting room, Local Vines is set up as a cooperative urban wine bar for Lamorinda winemakers. The Lafayette Chamber describes it as âa boutique urban wine tasting room in the heart of the Lamorinda Appellationâ and notes that it is run as a co-op of local winemakers, right in walkable distance from Highway 24 and Lafayette BART.
I stopped by about a year ago in December of 2024 when it was still under construction.
Construction in 2024. Credit: Thomas Smith/Bay Area Telegraph
Behind the bar is winemaker and consultant Pietro Buttitta, best known for Prima Materia, an Italian-variety focused label that recently closed its Temescal Alley tasting room in Oakland. Buttitta has taken on a new role as general manager and winemaking consultant at Local Vines, where he will help anchor the space and guide multiple small producers sharing the facility.
The author checking out the construction site in 2024. Credit: Bay Area Telegraph
Inside The Space: Co-op Tasting Room Meets Food Incubator
Local Vines is part of a broader Bay Area trend toward collective tasting rooms, where multiple small producers share a single, casual, community-oriented space instead of each trying to maintain their own formal tasting room.
In this case, wineries like Raison Dâetre and Deer Hill will be sharing the tasting space, which is paired with an incubator kitchen for emerging chefs next door. That allows for events with wine and food paired together.
Credit: Local Vines
After years of âcoming soonâ announcements from the Lamorinda Winegrowers Association and partner wineries, Local Vines finally started welcoming guests in early December. A December 4 post on the Local Vines Lafayette Facebook page described it as âthe first day of our soft openingâ and invited people to âdrop in to try Lamorinda grown and made wines,â with hours listed as Wednesday through Sunday, 2 to 7 pm.
Behind the tasting room during construction. Credit: Bay Area Telegraph
What are they pouring? Hereâs a sample of whatâs on offer at launch:
Wines by flight
White Wines Flight $10
Deer Hill Vineyards Chardonnay
Stag Hill Vermentino
Thal Vineyards Sauvignon Blanc
Crane Terrace Winery Chardonnay
Medium-Weight Reds Flight $12
Los Arabis Vineyards Pinot Noir
Deer Hill Vineyards Sangiovese
Meadow View Winery âSuper-Tâ Blend
Crane Terrace Winery Syrah
Bigger Reds Flight $12
Stag Hill Vineyards Syrah/Grenache
Meadow View Winery âHaasâ Cabernet
Prima Materia Aglianico
Raisin dâEtre Vineyards Petite Sirah
Gold Medal Flight $13
Stag Hill Vineyards Zinfandel
Rancho del Hambre âSoRhoâ Rhone Blend
Raisin dâEtre Vineyards Cabernet Sauvignon
Thal Vineyards âLilyâs Blendâ
Mount Diablo Cider Company Flight $8Â (ciders, not wine, but on the same menu)
