Hyper LocalWinery-kitchen brings all things good to Midtown
By Gabrielle Myers
February 2025
Revolution Winery & Kitchen embodies vine to bottle and farm to fork. The menu celebrates local fruit, breads, produce and wine grapes, all from within 100 miles of Midtown.
Chef-owner Gina Genshlea was raised on a sustainable farm in South Sacramento. She says her family “grew everything” they ate.
Childhood was filled with chestnuts, pecans, walnuts, olives, stone fruits, chickens, cows, pigs, goats, house-cured prosciutto and coppa, plus grapes and wine production.
With winemakers Colleen Clothier and Samuel Wharton, Revolution pulls the best local wine grapes. The crew crushes, ferments, ages and sells its wines in the heart of town.
The company uses some off-site storage, but most wine is produced and bottled on S Street.
The selection captures the powerhouse our region represents. Varieties of white and rose include sparkling, gewurztraminer, grenache blanc, vermentino and skin-fermented vermentino, and chardonnay, along with rose of valdiguie and rose of syrah.
As for reds, Revolution features barbera, syrah, pinot noir, tempranillo, cabernet sauvignon, malbec, cab franc and petite sirah.
Blends aren’t overlooked, such as sacteaux, which contains cabernet sauvignon, zinfandel, malbec, petite sirah and alicante bouschet.
Genshlea wants to “bring a piece of the farm into the city, bring something here that grows nearby.”
Clothier and Wharton built relationships with local growers, such as Heringer Estate in Clarksburg, Josh Lyman in Amador and Chuck Mansfield of Goldbud Farms in Placerville.
Winemakers and growers collaborate on when to plant, style and pick date. Clothier and Wharton bring the grapes to town and practice whole cluster fermenting with native yeasts and low intervention winemaking, which provides consistency. Red wines are unfiltered and filled with complex flavors and antioxidants.
Some Revolution wines are bottled for the company’s wine club. Most go into refillable kegs for a tap system, one of California’s largest.
From the kegs, wine pours into glasses and reusable bottles. The system cuts down on bottle waste.
Revolution opened in 2007 and arrived on S Street in 2010 next to Temple Coffee, Pushkin’s Bakery and Sacramento Natural Foods Co-op. Genshlea began with charcuterie boards, soups and salads. She gradually added seasonal selections of appetizers, burgers, pasta, polenta, rice dishes and New York steak.
Revolution uses local stone fruit and produce from Twin Peaks Orchards in Newcastle and Yeung Farms in West Sac. Bread comes from Village Bakery in Davis. Apples and apple juice arrive from Apple Hill, of course.
Having once lived down the street from Revolution, I enjoyed dinner and brunch often and the options for those of us with food allergies and preferences. Menus are clearly labeled and servers knowledgeable about food allergies. The kitchen accommodates.
I struggle with gluten and dairy allergies and appreciate how Genshlea and her team use separate fryers for gluten and dairy-free items, even with different salt and pepper containers.
I’ve enjoyed burgers with buns, tempera-fried cauliflower, cured salmon and eggs, and grilled New York steak and frites with joy at the restaurant. And the kitchen offers many options for vegans and vegetarians.
Revolution Winery & Kitchen is at 2831 S St. Visit rev.wine or call (916) 444-7711.
Gabrielle Myers can be reached at gabriellemyers11@gmail.com. Her latest book of poetry, “Break Self: Feed,” is available for $20.99 from fishinglinepress.com. Follow us on Facebook and Instagram: @insidesacramento.
