Oenophiles and casual wine drinkers alike are finding many more places to indulge in Northern Virginia.
Since August and as recently as February, the area has seen the opening of such stores as Domasoteca; a wine shop with cheese and sandwiches in the Rosslyn Hotel Palomar, Grape Juice, a store owned by the people behind Restaurant Vero in the same Lee Highway Shopping Center; and Grape & Bean, an independent wine and gourmet coffee shop in Alexandria.
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Many of the stores feature a mix of high-end and affordable offerings, and sell products such as candies and cheeses alongside the beverages.
“We have to in Virginia,” said Joy Reinhardt, owner of Grape Juice, which has an emphasis on featuring wines from small vineyards.
“People are really hungry for wine knowledge right now, and in the past few years, wine has been an increasingly hot topic in the area,” said Amanda McClements, author of the Web site Metrocurean, which chronicles D.C. restaurants. “Northern Virginia is right there at the front of the trend.”
With wine shops have come wine bars as well — Grand Cru inBallston came on the scene last fall. On May 1, Reston will see its first wine-themed restaurant, Vinifera Wine Bar & Bistro. Cheesetique, the cheese shop in the Alexandria neighborhood of Del Ray just expanded down the street and is opening a “cheese and wine bar” within the shop this weekend.
“We’re not looking to have a lot of extremely expensive wines; we’re going to have more adventurous wines from grapes some people may not be as familiar with at a reasonable cost,” said Vinifera general manager Sami Zeitoun.
All the openings reflect a growing interest in wine in the greater D.C. community; the Cork Restaurant on 14th Street has been packed since it opened.
Eli Hengst, owner of Mendocino Grille in Georgetown, arguably the District’s first wine bar, thinks wine is becoming accessible to the general community.
“Most of us grew up with this snobbery and pretentiousness surrounding wine — that it’s some guy in a tuxedo making a show of it — and that’s really not how the majority of the world drinks wine,” Hengst said.
