Zealot is a wine bar and bottle shop in Downtown Napa, owned and run by Thad and Emily Duprey.

When Thad was, ahem, "21" years old, on his first night in Napa, he walked into a wine shop at 974 Franklin Street. Eighteen years later, he walked into the same space and bought it. He learned to love wine in the very room where we now host others — hopefully helping them do the same.

Along the way we've been lucky to have some incredible experiences. Thad's introduction to Napa was a summer working at Hudson Vineyards in Carneros, whose wine we still proudly pour every day. He worked a harvest with Patz & Hall and spent years cooking in incredible restaurants — including one where he fell in love with the sommelier who now shares this dream with him. Emily worked as a somm in Boston and New York and spent a harvest with German legend Dönnhoff, so don't be surprised when you see plenty of German wine in our Napa shop. Our first date was a week-long trip to Napa. Now we own a business here and are raising our family here. How lucky are we?

We focus on the hidden side of Napa and beyond. Most of the wineries in our shop produce under 2,000 cases a year — many under 200. For every tasting room in wine country that can accommodate a tour bus, there's an artisan making a single barrel of this, or two barrels of that. Most of those wines never leave the valley, and most of them will be unfamiliar to you. We find those wines inherently more interesting, and every dollar you spend goes to a passionate underdog producer.

We're not big on pretense, and you'll never feel any judgment here — whether it's your first wine tasting or you're studying for your Master Sommelier exam. Zealot is a place built around community, and our evenings tend to be filled with wine-loving locals who are as welcoming as we are. For a taste of real Napa, come by and join us for a glass.