Wine Bar Boom

Photos by Danielle Leavell and Rick Dahms

Why it took wine bars so long to get their footing here I don’t know—all I know is in the past year and a half, they’ve become nearly as ubiquitous as the coffee shop. Local mini-chain Purple Café and Wine Bar (with locations in Woodinville, Kirkland and Seattle; thepurplecafe.com) was a pioneer of the form, convincing a trendy crowd who might be more inclined to cocktails that there is a lot of pleasure to be found in sipping wines. And now wine bars are cropping up in every neighborhood from Capitol Hill (Poco Wine Room, 1408 E Pine St.; 206.322.9463; pocowineroom.com) to Columbia City (Verve, 3820 S Ferdinand St., Suite 102; 206.760.0977; vervewinebar.com). It’s good news for wine aficionados and novices alike—through tasting flights, tasting note cards, winemaker events and, most importantly, lots of wines by the glass, these vino-centric bars are making it much less daunting to learn about wine.
 
Setting the gold standard, as far as I’m concerned, is five-year-old Portalis Wine Shop and Bar (Ballard, 5205 Ballard Ave. NW; 206.783.2007; portaliswines.com). There, former anesthesiologist Jens Strecker presides over a crew of well-versed wine geeks and mixes neighborhood-bar warmth with seriously interesting pours from around the world. Portalis has all sorts of wine bar virtues: a tiny 1-ounce taster serving for those truly afraid of commitment, a great selection of dessert wines by the glass, good bar snacks, free Sunday afternoon wine tastings and a Wednesday night deal when the $12 corkage fees are waived on all the wine shop’s bottles. Just to show that wine bars have all kinds of moods, DiVino (Ballard, 5310 Ballard Ave. NW; 206.297.0143; divinoseattle.com) has taken over Portalis’ original location just up the street and pours retro-futuristic 1960s Italian design—all white and shiny and a little bit cheesy—into bricky Old Ballard. It’s friendly and fun, with plenty of interesting Italians to slurp.

Italian has been the big theme as wine bars expand in the city. Most notably, the West Seattle restaurant and wine bar Beàto (West Seattle, 3247 California Ave. SW; 206.923.1333; beatoseattle.com) was opened by Italian wine aficionado Brandon Gillespie. There’s much more to Italian wines than Tuscany, and Beàto’s list is full of well-chosen regional vino, which could be daunting but for a particularly well-trained staff that can help you negotiate the offerings—which change every two weeks—featuring lesser-known Italians such as the Pigato (a Ligurian white) and Uva di Troia (a gamy Puglian red). A four-taste wine flight is featured each night, too, if you’re eager to do some side-by-side comparisons.

Bricco della Regina Anna (Queen Anne, 1525 Queen Anne Ave. N; 206.285.4900; briccoseattle.com) isn’t exclusively Italian in selection, but chef/owner Kevin Erickson and wine director Jesse Hufstader have a fondness for the food and wine of the region. Bricco manages to be elegant in appearance but totally neighborly. In fact, Erickson claims his customers come in on average two times a week; to keep them from getting bored, the 30-odd by-the-glass selections change every day or so, and instead of tasting flights, Bricco offers half-glass pours—“create your own flight,” says Erickson. Bricco’s hearty food options include charcuterie, panini, lasagna and an excellent (and excellently maintained) cheese selection.

Most wine bars tend to be warm and earthy in décor, but if you feel like browsing wines in a more sleek environment, there is Taste (downtown, 1300 First Ave.; 206.654.3245; tastesam.com), the cool, modern slice of a restaurant in the new Seattle Art Museum. There, the bar is spacious, and the wine list is the most meticulously organized I’ve seen. Wines are listed by tasting notes— “Vegetal Reds,” for example, or “Floral Whites”—but also by varietal, in case you’re looking for a more familiar guidepost. Also look for Taste’s Flights and Bites selection ($18, price changes according to selection), featuring three tastes of wine paired with three small bites of food.

At Cellar 46 (Mercer Island, 7650 SE 27th St., Suite 120; 206.407.3016; cellar46.com), a wine shop/bar combo, owner Ryan Allison doesn’t want you to forget that he’s got big wines on hand. Big-format bottles such as various magnums (which can hold the equivalent of two to eight bottles of wine) tower in niches, and a wall of wine nearly reaches the shop’s high ceilings. The wine shop/bar combination grew out of owner Allison’s other business, awinestore.com, which after 12 years of operation had amassed a serious collection, particularly Northwest wines. Cruise the wine bar menu and you’ll see moderately priced Washington Cabernets by the glass listed alongside a $1,500 bottle of California’s cult Screaming Eagle. Though that gesture is a little like driving the Bentley to soccer practice, if you ask me, there are plenty of more moderately priced bottles to discover as well.

Farther out on I-90 at the Issaquah Highlands, there may still be tar paper on the houses nearby, but Sip (Issaquah, 1084 NE Park Drive; 425.369.1181) already has a bustling scene. On a recent evening, small groups gathered around Sip’s huge, groovy, boomerang-shaped bar, and the room was animated with conversation. While the couple next to me chose between two bottles of super Tuscans, our bartender, who looked like he probably rides home on a motorcycle, steered us to a beautifully crafted Baer Winery blend. Sip offers half glasses, in case it’s you driving home from the foothills, and four-taste flights with jokey names—“Pinot Envy,” for example—in case it’s your companion at the wheel.