One more project, completed (more or less). This one’s a big one that took a long time.

Since we opened, we always expected to offer, among other things, a great wine bar. Dozens of wines from around the world, including world-class high-end wines, all served by the bottle, the glass, or the small pour. All in good condition, at temperature.

It turns out that the logistics of putting that together were much more complex than I originally grasped. You need a way to ensure that even the slow-moving wines stay in good condition, and that their temperatures are correct (there are few things more disappointing than the first sip of a 75F glass of good red wine!).

There are commercially available systems to deal with these things, but for several dozen wines it would cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, which is well beyond our means. Over time, though, we’ve built equipment and developed systems for everything, and as our business grew we could offer more. We usually have had almost 20 red wines available by the glass.

Now — once again with help from draftmeister Lee Chase — we’ve added a wine dispense system to our white/pink wine fridge, which means that we can really expand our selection of whites as well.

As of yesterday, we have around 40 wines by the glass, available as a 2 oz “taste”, 5 oz glass, or 750 ml bottle. All dispensed from coolers and blanketed with argon to prevent spoilage. (NB: Some purists don’t like drinking very high-end wine that hasn’t been exposed to oxygen. While obviously the wine gets some oxygen when it’s in your glass, I agree with the purists that a very high-end wine is better if it opens up fully over time, like an hour or so. So we’re probably not going to put many $200+ bottles on the system.)

It pleases me that we’re now able to offer a full, proper wine bar experience to complement our craft beer setup with its multiple casks, flights, and drafts. Bobby’s wine selections and Steph’s beer selections are both worthy of this sort of comprehensiveness.

Obvs we’re not stopping working. I think we’ll switch the thermostat out on our white wine & large-format bottle beer fridge to make it warmer — 39F is not releasing as many flavors as it could, I think 45F would be ideal. There will continue to be tweaks like this over time.

But I think you will enjoy the expanded setup.