Garret Thomas Murphy: The Chief Tastemaker Who Wrote Napa a Novel
More than two decades after founding Vintner's Collective on a sleepy Main Street, Garret Thomas Murphy has published The Gentleman Farmer, a novel drawn from twenty years behind the tasting bar.
Garret Thomas Murphy has spent more than two decades pouring other people's wines. As founder and chief tastemaker of Vintner's Collective, the multi-winery tasting room he opened at 1245 Main St. in 2002, he built a stage for Napa Valley's small, independent producers. Now he has written himself a second act: The Gentleman Farmer, a novel drawn from twenty years of life in wine country, following his memoir The Butcher of American Idioms.
Raised in Paris, Murphy brings what he calls a distinctly international perspective to wine, photography and storytelling. In a written interview with the Napa Tribune, he traced the Collective back to what downtown Napa was missing at the turn of the century: a place where boutique producers could reach visitors at all.
“When we founded Vintner’s Collective in 2002, downtown Napa was a very different place,” he said. “The wine industry was thriving, but downtown wasn’t necessarily where visitors came to experience Napa Valley’s smaller, independent wineries.” Beyond downtown, he saw the regulatory and distribution hurdles facing small producers in the post-Prohibition system as enormous, especially for producers focused on quality rather than quantity.”
Growth is wonderful, but character is what makes a place memorable.
Helping these talented winemakers succeed in what often seemed like a rigged game became my motivation.Garret Thomas Murphy, to the Napa Tribune
The concept was simple, he said: bring exceptional wines from boutique producers together under one roof, giving visitors access to winemakers and wines they might otherwise never discover. Today the Collective pours wines from some two dozen small-production vintners, and Murphy says it is still resonating with a new generation of wine aficionados.
From his perch on Main Street, he has watched downtown Napa transform. “When we opened in 2002, downtown Napa was sleepy, much as it had been since the 1970s, and was still trying to find its identity as a wine-country destination,” he said. “Today, it’s become a vibrant collection of restaurants, tasting rooms, gift shops, hotels, galleries, and independent businesses.” What comes next, he argues, is a question of character.
Growth is wonderful, but character is what makes a place memorable.Garret Thomas Murphy, to the Napa Tribune
The novel grew out of the same room. After more than twenty years in the Napa Valley wine industry, Murphy said, he had collected enough stories, personalities and experiences to fill several books. Fiction, he found, could go where the tasting-room floor could not.
I often think of The Gentleman Farmer as a fictional story that gives readers an insider’s peek into a lesser-known side of Napa Valley.Garret Thomas Murphy, to the Napa Tribune
“In a tasting room, you’re naturally focused on hospitality, wine, and making people feel welcome,” he said. “Fiction gives you the freedom to explore the more complicated side of human nature,” along with “the wonderful luxury of changing names, pushing boundaries, and creating even more intense conflicts.”
The two jobs feed each other, he said. Running what is essentially a social club introduced him to an extraordinary collection of people, “from winemakers and vineyard owners to visitors from every corner of the world,” a wonderful environment for someone who enjoys observing human nature. Writing, in turn, made him more attentive to the stories behind the wines. Where they compete is time: “Between running a business, writing, photography, and everything else life throws at you, there aren’t always enough hours in the day.”
What is next: at the Collective, a continuing search for exceptional small-production wineries and new ways to introduce them to guests. On the literary side, local bookstore events and signings, plus a private book club experience built around The Gentleman Farmer, with signed books, companion materials and the option of a virtual author visit. No formal traditional book tour is planned, he said, “but I’m always happy to meet readers and talk about Napa Valley, wine, and storytelling.”
Asked what a visitor with one evening downtown usually gets wrong, his answer was to slow down: walk Main Street, explore the historic buildings, find a small tasting room, pick up a book at Napa Bookmine, grab a croissant at Moulin, relax on a terrace. For dinner, his picks are Cole’s Chop House, Angèle, and Scala Osteria, and “if you have a keen eye, you might even stumble upon a really cool toy museum.”
And remember, wine is meant to be enjoyed, not conquered!Garret Thomas Murphy, to the Napa Tribune
The Gentleman Farmer is available through local bookstores and online. More on Vintner’s Collective at vcnv.com, and on the author at garretmurphy.com.
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