California Bungalow Brings Old World-Style Wine Tastings To West Coast

27.02.2024 - 15:59 / forbes.com

An accordion rests in the foyer of the 1926 bungalow. A short walk from the Napa Valley Wine Train—a tourist draw that beckons travelers to career through the California wine country’s vineyards by boxcar—the comfortable confines of Jeff Durham and Joey Wolosz’s single story home welcome travelers to a different kind of journey through wine country.

At The Gentleman Farmer Bungalow, the flavors of this verdant land of rolling vineyards find their way from fields and pastures to pallets. And they do it through a pair of careful, considerate hosts that want travelers to know the stories in the walls of the historic home. The accordion? That belongs to Wolosz. When he’s not building dishes like buckwheat blini, sourdough loaves and cassoulet in the home’s centerpiece commercial kitchen, Wolosz can be found echoing the accordion around the Napa Valley. The firefighting tools on the shelves? Durham remembers his father lugging them around the valley as a kid.

At the bungalow, there’s no set menu. The dishes are fresh, flavorful and handcrafted by the husbands who’ve weaved a life of hospitality from hoteliers to vintners and chefs. But the real treats are the conversations. They’re tales from a renovated roadside motel in the redwood and fables from forays into kitchens and vineyards in France.

This is a place for thoughtful visitors to Napa to converse, a safe haven for the curious traveler hidden in plane sight—one that offers a more intimate perspective than the sprawling compounds of some of California’s largest wineries located a stone’s throw away. By peeling back the layers of a area often obscured by opulent tasting rooms and placing its flavors in the setting of a humble craftsman bungalow, the Napa Valley onion begins to taste a little sweeter.

A self-scribed manifesto sits on the bar overlooking this home’s open kitchen. “To open the good stuff for no reason is the reason,” it reads. “Take up the wire whisk. Choose the stone mortar and pestle. Use the seasoned cast-iron skillet.”

“It’s not a restaurant,” says Wolosz, whirling around Durham between oven, sink and stovetop. “It’s a wine tasting. We are here to showcase the wines, but I prefer to serve a little food as we do it. And, that might take a couple of hours.”

Born from a five week, 50th-birthday retreat to Bordeaux, the Gentleman Farmer Bungalow is a monument to the love shared between Wolosz and Durham, as well as the losses experienced through decades of companionship. Lost family members are harbored in each pour. Laughter, joy and tears manifest through turns of a whisk and screws over cork.

“This is our story,” says Wolosz, pointing out the extensive renovations required to bring a vintage craftsman home to life as a commercial wine