Flight delay? Tasting wine flights at Vino Volo wine bar in Washington Dulles airport.
1. Bacchus Wine and Saki Bar, San Francisco
Located on the Hyde Street cable car route near the top of Russian hill, this intimate neighborhood wine bar is the ideal place to wait for table at nearby restaurants like Zarzuela or Sushi Groove. Wines by the glass or bottle, wine flights, select beers and sake are all on the menu, served in a small room filled with comfy seats, pleasant music, engaging art, fresh flowers and a friendly personality behind the bar, often the owner.
2. W.I.N.O. Wine Institute of New Orleans
We stumbled onto this unusual wine bar/ store when in New Orleans walking to dinner at Emeril’s restaurant. You provide a credit card to receive a tasting card and glasses, and then insert the card into an Enomatic wine serving system where you taste by the ounce or ounces. Your card keeps track of your bill. W.I.N.O. offers 120 different wines to sample by the ounce, half glass or glass. Good thing our dinner reservations kept us from getting carried away.
3. JP Wine Bar, Kansas City
While it’s called a wine bar and coffee house, JP’s is really about fine-dining food like coffee crusted beef tenderloin salad, wild mushroom risotto and diver sea scallops, served as large or small plates or sides. We like to order a mix of plates and sides, along with a cheese flight for sharing while trying a few of the 22 different wine flights. If we find a wine we like, we order a full glass or a bottle – the list includes more 250 bottles from around the world. Not many wine bars served Rafanelli Zinfandel in a wine flight; this one does. One note, it’s pricy by Kansas City standards. See full menu and wine list here
4. Zinc Wine Bar & Bistro Albuquerque, New Mexico
Fodor’s lead us to this wine bar and restaurant in Albuquerque. We stayed at the zinc top bar, enjoying the opportunity to make our own flights from the extensive wine list. We also liked the choices: ½ glasses, glass, ½ bottle and bottle. The dining room looked great, but if we were going for dinner we’d want to sit at the open kitchen dining bar.
5. The Hidden Vine, San Francisco
While seeking directions to a new wine bar that turned out not open, the concierge at the Hilton Union Square introduced us to this wine bar, drawing us a map to its “hidden” location. It’s now a mandatory stop on every San Francisco visit. Hidden in the back of the lobby of the Fitzgerald Hotel, it is dark and cozy with 35 unusual wines generally from small producers. We like the taste comparison flights that include two different wines of the same variety or type – with little labels so their “identities” are hidden until you’ve decided which you like the best. The food offerings, limited to cheese and charcuterie, have always been fabulous.
6. Vino Volo in 10 US airports from Seattle to Baltimore
We spend lots of time in flying, which leads to layovers and flight delays in airports. We don’t mind so much if there is a Vino Volo wine bar near our gate, like there is Washington Dulles Concourse C (United flights) or in Baltimore’s Concourse A (Southwest flights). Very personable staff, great wines, and the brie and prosciutto sandwich always hits the spot. Vino Volo features a wine comparison tool that rates wines by fruit and complexity – see here. If you are connecting to your last flight, you can buy wine to go buy the bottle, and surprise someone when you arrive.
We enjoy wine and exploring the world’s wine-producing regions. Tasting one’s way around the world in a good wine bar is another enjoyable way to travel. What is your favorite wine bar? We’d like to check it out. Please share in comments.
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