Corral Wine Co. Moves to the Historic Hatton Milk Barn
Words by Laith Agha
Photos by Kelsey Wisdom
With a tasting room already in Carmel Valley, Larry Bell looked into opening a second one in downtown Carmel. While the idea is still on the table, Bell has put the cork back in that bottle for now.
Instead, he’s opted to move his Corral Wine Co. tasting room in Carmel Valley Village to the old William Hatton milk barn, a space that shares a parking lot and a landlord with Corral’s original location. While the tasting room only moved about 200 yards west along Carmel Valley Road, the Corral sipping experience is expanding into whole new territory.
“It gives us a more well-rounded tasting area,” Bell says. “People go out to the valley for sunshine. And now we can serve inside at the bar or out under the sun.”
Corral Wine Co.'s new Carmel Valley location in the historic Hatton Milk Barn features an outdoor patio perfect for summer.
In the previous location, in White Oak Plaza, Corral was part of a wine-taster’s row of sorts, sharing a quaint strip mall with five other tasting rooms (and a taqueria). It was a great place to get started, says Bell, who began vinting in 2017 and opened the tasting room in 2022. But now, they have a roomy outdoor sitting area and a historic building with all the character of a Steinbeck novel. Hatton, the Monterey County dairy titan whose legacy is immortalized all around the Carmel area (there’s a canyon, a street, and a neighborhood named after him, for instance), built it in 1890 as his operation’s creamery. The distinctive tower that still rises out of the second-story roof served as ventilation to help cool the milk. Some of the first Monterey Jack cheese was made there.
“One of the cool things is that it’s a part of Carmel Valley’s history,” Bell says. “It’s just a special, old building.”
While the building is unmistakably from a past era, Bell and his team gave it a modern makeover—both inside and on the patio. Lounging areas feature chairs and benches built by Bell and winemaking cohort Skip Wilcox—in the very Corral de Tierra barn where they make the wine.
“This could be home,” Bell says, “where we could plant some really good roots.”
Corral Wine Co., 19 East Carmel Valley Rd., Unit A, Carmel Valley Village; corralwine.com. <img src="https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/6457f19f1c1e1601e2c9c3f6/6487a9355b63a6818c705cea_CC-Icon--20.svg"alt="CC"height="20" width="20">