With a name like PizzaVino 707, the theme is so crisply, intoxicatingly, numerically obvious.
There’s pizza in a starring role at the downtown Sebastopol restaurant, the thin-crust pies wood-fired and topped with locally sourced ingredients.
There’s 707, which is the area code from whence those local ingredients come.
And there’s wine, in approachable California- and Italy-centric varieties.
Yet now, partner Stephen Singer (formerly Chez Panisse, West County Grill), Gayle Pirie and John Clark (Foreign Cinema in San Francisco), have upped the wine bar. Literally.
They’ve introduced the Sonoma County Wine Collective, a virtual tasting room and retail store inside the restaurant. Here, you can sample wines from Sonoma’s small, artisan wineries, and when you fall in love with a sip, purchase a bottle or 12.
Kickback as can be, the Collective is set up in a cozy space between PizzaVino’s cocktail bar and its eat-in counter flanking the kitchen and glowing-hot pizza oven. The labels are just a few right now, but the membership is growing, including Atascadero Creek Winery, Baker Lane, Claypool Cellars, County Line Vineyards, Lattanzio Wines, Radio-Coteau, and Scherrer Winery.
The idea is to keep things interesting and affordable, such as Atascadero’s Di Ricco Sauvignon Blanc (2008 Lake County) for $26, or Claypool Cellars’ Purple Pachyderm Pinot Noir (2007, Russian River) for $54. Want just a glass? You can get that, too, like a Scherrer Old & Mature Vines Zinfandel (2004, Alexander Valley) for $9.75.
Whether you’re tasting, shopping or supping, it makes for an interesting mix for your visit.
Through a recent dinner, we found ourselves well-served and well-entertained, quizzing our waiter about the wineries as he did double duty delivering our pizzas and describing the Collective grapes. What, we wondered, would match with PizzaVino’s stinging nettles pie, dotted with creamy crescenza, mozzarella, garlic and thyme?
Pinot Noir, he suggested.
He was right – nettles are a herbaceous plant from the Urtica species, a name derived from the Latin word “uro,” which translates as “I burn.” As in poison ivy-type villains, with vicious stinging hairs swimming in natural chemicals that inflame human skin like nobody’s business.
Yum.
Except that after removing nettles’ prickly armor (wearing the imperative gloves), and carefully cooking them, the result is a mild-flavored, nutrient-packed green that’s really pretty delicious.
The garlic adds oomph, the cheese tame things down, and the velvety texture and deep black cherry flavors of the Pinot sweeten the whole sensation.
About those pies, by the way – For thin-crust pizza fans that crave crackly crunch and char-edged blisters, be forewarned that this is a gentler, softer model. But zesty toppings steal the show, like a pepper pie of jalapenos, fingerling potatoes, mozzarella, capers and pecorino.
Rounding things out are salads, such as shaved Savoy cabbage with arugula, mustard vinaigrette, walnuts and pecorino, and a few entrees, notably a curry-scented roast chicken or handkerchief pasta in pork sugo.
To get a taste of PizzaVino 707, at an incredible bargain, here’s a tip: mark your calendar for the first-ever Sonoma County Restaurant Week being held from Feb. 22-28. That’s when dozens of Sonoma’s top eateries are banding together in an extravaganza of all things edible, and incredibly affordable, with each restaurant offering a three-course prix-fixe menu at $19, $29, or $39.
PizzaVino is participating in grand style, with a $19 feast including a starter of soup of the day or a mixed green salad, a main course of five-spice scented grilled chicken or housemade Italian sausage pizza, and dessert of housemade gelato or sorbetto.
Details: PizzaVino 707, 6948 Sebastopol Avenue, Sebastopol, (707) 829-9500, pizzavino707.com.
Details: SonomaCountyRestaurantWeek.org