San Francisco Wine Trading Company, San Francisco

What to buy here: Wine: Hill Family Estate 2007 Pinot Noir ($37).

Large-Scale Wineries such as… PlumpJack: Founded by former San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom in 1997, Newsom’s wine career began with a wine shop called PlumpJack in the city’s Marina district in 1992 (named after an opera written by Gordon Getty, father of Newsom’s then business partner Bill Getty). PlumpJack is now a restaurant, bar, wine shop, and resort group, and the winery a Cabernet house above all. Opus One: A joint venture between fellow Napa winegrower Robert Mondavi and baron Philippe de Rothschild, the elite operation is based out of a minimalist Napa Valley bunker and begins at $50 a bottle. Crops are aged in single-use $700 French barrels. “The standard is not to be excellent here, it is to be perfect,” Robert’s son Tim Mondavi once said.

Boutique Wineries such as… Hill Family Estate: The estate has worked with athletes and musicians to promote their 12-vineyard operation, marketing a “Hill Harvest Red”-stained surfboard and, for Fender guitars, “Hill Harvest Red” instruments. Prager: Specializing in Portuguese port-style wines, Prager lies at the end of a one-lane dirt road in the Napa Valley. Flavor comparisons have been made to caramel popcorn, black licorice, chocolate, and cherries.