Fat Grape Winery

Best winery I’ve been to in the Bay Area. You are greeted by Pat, a sweet, charming guy who is really passionate about his craft. He allows you to sample 20 – 30 wines depending on the day/​crowd. Plan to stay and enjoy at least a couple hours and don’t forget to take a few bottles to share with your friends! Our favorite was T&A (Malbec, Merlot, and Barbera blend) and the Merlot. Can’t wait to enjoy a bottle on the beach at sunset later!

Very friendly laid back staff and it’s interesting to checkout an old building on the island. Bathrooms available and snacks with the wine. I have done a fair amount of wine tasting, but I am also not overly picky. These wines are bad, I didn’t like a single one. They don’t sell outside of their location and I can see why. I have never gone wine tasting and thought the wine did not taste good.

The winery had me at Free Tastings. And it keeps getting better: No Sulfates (may cause headaches, and asthmatics may have less tolerance to sulfates), 27 samples, and personal attention. Free home made onion dip with olive bread, vinegar and oil, nacho chips and crackers to savor. The wines themselves were on point. My favorite were 2008 Cab Franc, 2008 Sangiovese, 2009 Hot Date (Syrah, Sangio, Zinfandel, and Petite Syrah) 2009 Dante’s Pick (Malbec and Syrah), Dirty Dans Mix (Merlot, Malbec, Matavo). You have to try them for yourself. Patrick, the wine-​making maestro, and Charity will serve you up a good time!

As my brother calls it «the least pretentious winery in California’. The owner will drink with you and gives you lots of free samples. The wine is preservative and sulfate free so you don’t get flushed– its red wine only and its delicious

This place is fantastic. By far the best tasting I have done in San Francisco. There over 25 different types of wine that you get to taste FOR FREE. If you decide to purchase bottles, they are excellently priced. The host made it a great time. He was very knowledgeable and enthusiastic. You can tell he truly enjoys talking to customers and making sure that you have a great time. Highly recommend!

I love wine and I’ve done countless wine tastings before. I have to be brutally honest: this is likely the worst wine I’ve ever tasted in my life. I’ve had significantly better tasting dirt-​cheap wines than what I tried at Fat Grape. Yes, the tastings are free and you can pretty much have all you want, but I wouldn’t drink it again even if they paid me to. I gave it a shot. I tried three very different wines while I was there. Each one was sour and funky. My friend and I ducked out ASAP after the third, both feeling the same way.
The workers seemed nice. I’ll give them that.

This wine is by far the worst you will ever try. Unless you like the taste of airplane glue, don’t bother. Way too many different types that made no sense. Sulfites serve a purpose. Nice location but better stops on the island.

No Sulfites. This guy is a great host. He is hilarious, knowledgeable, drinks with you. He has great deals so you come out even (no change like $ 40 even). Great environment.

The malbec was delicious. There are tons of tasting options and there is no limit. If you’re looking for a good amount of tastings without the fuss, this is a great place to go. However, Treasure Island… is sketch. The people here seem to all be drunk or creepy. The location just isn’t ideal. The building would be great for a holloween haunted house party. Yeah, that is just all of Treasure Island really.

Absolutely amazing the 2^nd and 3^rd and 4^th time. Don’t listen to the bad reviews, they are basing it off the venue, not the wine.

Wine is decent for the price. The selection and tasting process was confusing at best. The servers were rude; no courtesy, or any explanations of what I was tasting.
Even after purchasing two bottles, I felt rushed out the door (I said it thank you, and no response, wow!), the waitress had already told the customers behind me that they could sit where I was. As I was handed my credit card back, I shuffled a little bit, and was given a stern «you can’t go until you sign this».
I wasn’t going to go anywhere, (was going to taste and possibly buy more) until then that is.
4 stars for the quality of wine. 0 stars for the experience. Never have I been at a tasting where absolutely nothing was said, I didn’t even know what I was drinking at first. Horrible. This would have been a five if not for the service.
I work a half block away, and if I was invited back for an apology, I would be happy to step foot into their establishment on a regular basis.
Edit: after reading other reviews, apparently the owner is very friendly, passionate & knowledgeable; so i wonder if he knows his employees have none of these qualities.

The venue is border-​lined unacceptable. I love following the orange line to the once vistor’s center of the naval jailyard. They really need to spruce it up. Keep the parking lot on the side, add some picnic tables in the quad, some trees around the fence, and hang some lights. It would warm it right up.
What is awesome about fat grape though is its non pretentious nature. You can come sit, drink free wine tastings, bring a picnic, and just enjoy. The wines were pretty steep at $ 25 per bottle, and ya… I liked Fat Grape. just don’t know if i’d like it enough to return.

I had a great experience coming to Fat Grape. My girlfriend and I heard that there were wineries offering free tastings on Treasure Island and we didn’t have any plans so we said, «what the heck.» Drove to the island and from there we were directed all the way to the far end of the island to a little warehouse area. You arrive and walk behind a fence and find the entrance to the winery. It’s not a Napa winery, if that’s what you are looking for you go to Napa.
You walk in and we were greeted by Patrick and ushered to take a seat and drink. This is a warehouse with a table and some chairs and barrels everywhere. So you come for the wines and these are different than some you’ve probably tasted before because they are fresh wines. That means it doesn’t really spend that much time in a bottle to age, you can drink it straight up for the most part and it can last up to a week in the fridge after opening which I thought was really good. Sometimes I cant’ finish a whole bottle in one sitting so this was very neat. They had at least 20 different types of wines and you could try all of them for free if you wanted to. Some we liked and some we didn’t, but that’s the way it goes for any wines. Personal preference. We really enjoyed the Captain’s Choice and we ended up buying a bottle of that. They give you a ice pack and bag to bring it home, they suggest you just go straight home to refrigerate it or else it will spoil. So if you are shopping or whatever after your visit, probably don’t buy a wine unless it’s winter time and really cold out.
All in all Patrick knew his stuff and was very knowledgeable. He will definitely talk your ear off but that’s what happens when you find people who love what they do. It’s not for everyone like when we saw an older couple visit the same time and look visibly dissatisfied but if you’re in the area with time to kill, why not? It was a pleasant experience for us and we would like to come again.

My husband and I stumbled in here last Sunday… first and last winery of the day. It was epic. Free tasting, good music and great wines. Patrick, the owner and wine maker, obviously loves his chosen career and was down to earth and entertaining.
A few things to note that makes this place stand out:
The wines are sulfite free
They are very dry and don’t smack you in the face with too much fruit
The winery itself is a warehouse… this isn’t some hoity toity Napa place where all the snobs hang out.
I grew up on a farm near Lodi and it’s nice to taste Lodi wines in the Bay Area at a low key place. We will definitely be going back for more.

First things first, clearly owner Patrick Bowen loves to make wine. He nearly bounces off the walls with his enthusiasm for his specialty, sulfite-​free wines. That means he doesn’t add any artificial preservatives which of course makes these bottles organic. On the other side of the coin, the challenge is how long they keep in the fridge once you buy a bottle. I came here quite by accident since Treasure Island Wines wasn’t open due to their somewhat erratic hours. In fact, I wasn’t quite clear that Treasure Island has become a hub for several wine warehouses which provides a nice, low-​rent way to enjoy California wines without having to travel to Napa or Sonoma. Just don’t smash into my Prius when you forget to look behind you as you’re getting onto the Bay Bridge. Anyway, Fat Grape is no Benziger when it comes to ambiance.
No polished hardwoods, no cave for special dinners. It’s simply a warehouse with a counter, a line of bottles for pour (photo:
) and a few metal vats in the back. To Patrick’s credit, he is liberal with his pours, but the double-​edged sword is that he is serving the same would-​be customers for a really long time, including a mouthy, opinionated chef who insisted on showing off his faux-​sommelier knowledge. There was quite a selection on his whiteboard, all in the $ 20-​$ 30 range, including blends with names like Hot Date, Hugs & Kisses and Pillow Talk (photo:
). After giving three wines a try, I decided on a $ 23 bottle of Luigi’s Blend, which mixed Old Vine Zinfindel, Syrah and Petit Verdot into a heartier yet smoother elixir than the rest (photo:
). Not the best I’ve had but it worked well enough for a couple of dinners in the week afterward.

Came here after a few wine tastings on the island and didn’t know what to expect (as usual when discovering new wine tasting establishments). I’ve been to a bunch of wineries that range from down to earth to down right snob city and Fat Grape Winery was in the down to earth range. Patrick was nice and knowledgeable… I had no clue there was wines made without sulfates nor what they tasted like. I enjoyed the fact that the tastings were free… not a fan of spending money on a tasting and realizing that every wine is not that great. Out of the 15 or so tastings, my wife and I decided on a bottle and Patrick nicely packaged it with ice packs since we were not immediately heading home. What a guy.

Don’t go here — it’s all mine. Everything about it is bad… it is even in an old Navy prison… leave all the heavy pours, great stories, tasty snacks, amazing host/​hostessing to me and my friends… I want all the fun to myself…

I would not recommend this winery to anyone. This was our first stop for wine tasting on treasure island. It was free wine tasting of about 17 different wines, which sounds awesome until you actually taste the wine. They all taste the same and they weren’t very good. The bottles were definitely not $ 25 bottles the prices that they were marked. We left after about 7 samples, because we wanted to actually be able to try some other wineries on the island. My boyfriend likes talking to the wine maker as well and this guy was kind of awkward so it made the experience weird. The only reason I gave them 2 stars was because it was free.

Who knew? Treasure Island is a place to go wine tasting! It’s kinda weird because you are in the middle of an abandoned naval base and then there are random wineries in the old naval buildings, but hey, great views of the City and the Bay Bridge!
This one is super low key. Which is nice if you ask me. Wine is about enjoying life and making good tasting alcoholic beverages out of grapes — not about being stuck up.
Yes, it is free. Which actually is a great marketing method if you ask me. Who DOESN’T buy a bottle of wine after getting to try 20 for free?
All the wines are sulfite free — which means they taste like they don’t have sulfites in them. So to me they are a little weird, not bad, but not what I’m used to. Also in general I’d say lighter and more acidic than many commercial wines.

Good lord. This was… uh…interesting.
We stopped in here on a whim a couple weekends ago. The guy running the show sure is friendly. And spacey. From what we gathered, he’s a long burnt-​out old raver. Okay, that’s cool, I’m no stranger to raves myself… but dang. Just… dang.
Let’s politely call it ADHD. Patrick must have something like it, because when we visited, he had 24 freaking bottles of wine set up on the bar for tasting. He made a huge deal about how he never adds sulfites to his wines (ok, fair enough) or sugar or salt or other preservatives (uhh, ok). The majority of his bottles weren’t even labeled because he basically just siphons shit straight from the barrels to the bottles as needed. Apparently he doesn’t have issues with bottle shock? I dunno. He asked us a lot of weird questions too, like «have you ever had a petit verdot ON ITS OWN??» and stuff. Bizarre.
Pours were literally like a quarter ounce each. Understandable considering the number of wines there were, but another thing I’ve learned during my wine tasting adventures is that you actually NEED a more generous pour because otherwise, you can’t get a good sense of the bouquet at such a low amount. Or the taste if you only have enough for one sip. And bouquet is very important for the overall taste!
As for the wines, none really struck me. Ok I didn’t really like any of them. They tasted pretty much the same (probably because the small pours don’t give you a chance to make out any major differences) — like Welch’s grape juice that’s sat out in the sun. Meh.
Thankfully, the tasting was free… so two stars for cost effectiveness/​value and for Patrick’s friendly disposition. I feel bad knocking the winery because he was so nice, but… I gotta be honest.