Napa Valley · Tables
The Cellar Series: Bottega's Season of Winemaker Dinners
Bottega Napa Valley's inaugural Cellar Series seats 36 guests a night with the owners and winemakers behind some of California's most allocated bottles, from Peter Michael to Marchesi Antinori.
October 5, 2026 · Words by Laura Simmons, Staff Writer · Photography, see credits
Photography courtesy of Yountville
On September 8, Bottega Napa Valley announced the inaugural Bottega Cellar Series: five intimate, one-night-only wine dinners pairing visiting producers with multi-course menus from Executive Chef Alex Espinoza. Each evening seats just 36 guests and pours six to eight wines, with the owners and winemakers behind some of California's most allocated bottles in the room.
The format is deliberately small. General manager Edgar Antonio's team has built the series around access: the people who grow the grapes and make the wine, pouring them alongside a kitchen that has spent nearly two decades refining Italian cooking in Yountville. The announcement frames each dinner as a single evening that will not be repeated.
Thirty-six seats changes the geometry of a wine dinner. There is no stage and no microphone distance; the person who made the wine is at a neighboring table, and the questions guests usually save for the tasting room get asked between courses. That intimacy is the product being sold, as much as the six to eight wines in the glasses.
The lineup
The series opens Wednesday, October 7 with Peter Michael Winery, hosted by owners Paul and Emily Michael. The winery, founded in 1982, farms 201 planted acres across three estates in Knights Valley, the West Sonoma Coast, and Oakville, working in the traditions of Burgundy and Bordeaux. Its wines are highly allocated and sold primarily through its mailing list, which makes an evening of six to eight pours, with the owners at the table, the kind of access money alone does not usually buy.
Photography courtesy of Bottega Napa Valley
Wednesday, October 14 belongs to winemaker Thomas Rivers Brown and Casa Piena owner Carmen Policy, pouring Rivers-Marie and Casa Piena. Brown's own labels have made him one of California's most followed winemakers; the announcement credits him with nearly 70 perfect 100-point scores across his career. The restaurant's OpenTable listing also names Brown's Aston Estate and Platt Vineyards labels among the evening's pours.
Photography courtesy of Bottega Napa Valley
The back half of the calendar stretches into December. Wednesday, November 4 brings Marchesi Antinori, the Tuscan house whose winemaking legacy reaches back to 1385 and is now led by its 26th generation; the evening pours Tignanello and Guado al Tasso, with estate manager Glenn Salva in the room. Tuesday, November 17 is Stag's Leap Wine Cellars, the Stags Leap District estate Warren Winiarski established in 1970, arriving in the middle of its year-long 50th anniversary celebration of the 1976 Judgment of Paris, where its 1973 S.L.V. Cabernet bested two Bordeaux First Growths; longtime winemaker Marcus Notaro hosts. The series closes Wednesday, December 2 with a double bill: Stony Hill Vineyard and Heitz Cellar, hosted by Carlton McCoy Jr., Master Sommelier and CEO of Lawrence Wine Estates. Stony Hill, founded on Spring Mountain in 1952 by the McCrea family, is known for high-elevation Chardonnay and Riesling; Heitz Cellar, founded in 1961 by Joe and Alice Heitz, pioneered single-vineyard designated Cabernet.
Why it works here
Bottega is an apt stage. Founded in 2008 by the late Chef Michael Chiarello, the Yountville restaurant is now stewarded by co-owners Rich Frank and John Hansen, who took full ownership with a vow to honor Chiarello's legacy while writing the next chapter. Espinoza, a Culinary Institute of America graduate and Tra Vigne veteran, joined the kitchen in 2021. Over the last year the wine program has expanded to more than 800 selections, with 30 wines by the glass, Coravin pours, and vertical and horizontal tastings.
The program keeps deepening. In November 2025 the restaurant named Stephen Arnold wine director, with Frank and Hansen saying the hire would elevate the wine program and broaden both domestic and international selections, as reported by the Press Democrat. A series built on winemaker access is the natural expression of that investment: the cellar is not just stocked, it is introduced, one owner and one winemaker at a time.
The setting helps. Bottega sits on Washington Street in Yountville, the valley's densest culinary corridor, where the announcement's open kitchen, soaring ceilings, and olive-tree-shaded patios read as the room the series was designed for. Harvest season fills those tables with the valley's most attentive audience: people who came to Napa to pay attention.
That context matters, because the Cellar Series is not a tasting with dinner attached. It is a bet that in a valley full of wine dinners, the scarce ingredient is the person: the owner who can say why a vineyard was planted, the winemaker who can explain the vintage in the glass. Thirty-six seats, one night each, no repeat performances.
The details
Every dinner begins at 6 p.m. Tickets for the October evenings are $357 per person, prepaid, with tax and gratuity included, according to the restaurant's OpenTable listings. The October 7 Peter Michael dinner falls two days after this article's publication and may already be spoken for, so October 14 is the realistic first move. The full series runs through December 2; book through the restaurant's OpenTable page.
Details verified at time of publication. Photography courtesy of Bottega Napa Valley and Yountville.
