Tis the season for shopping. Tis also the season for sipping while shopping, if you’re into that. I certainly am.
That’s why I love a growing niche around New Orleans for wine shops that double as wine bars. At these places, shopping for wine can double as a little social time too, and I am here for it.
The holiday season is their prime time as people dart in for gifts and stock up for parties and also try to carve out a little time for catching up with friends between it all as the year comes to its rapid finale.
The wine bar adds to the warmth and personality of neighborhood shops, qualities that make local businesses like these the antidote to the blank coldness of big box retail and e-commerce.
This wine shop-meets-wine bar niche has been growing in number and variety across New Orleans, carving a third space in the city’s hospitality spectrum as specialty retail shops with a social side.
Just this year we got the Little House in Algiers Point, with its big patio outside, and two shops on Magazine Street: Really Really Nice Wines and Patron Saint, all places that can furnish snacks like cheese boards and salumi along with the wine.
They join places like Swirl in Mid-City with its hidden patio and Italian wine focus, Faubourg Wines on St. Claude Avenue where if you’re lucky maybe the Press Street train crossing will block you in and you’ll have to stay for another; and the Independent Caveaux, a true find deeply tucked away off Broad Street, with a first glass deli case.
The concept isn’t new in New Orleans. Martin Wine Cellar has long offered wine by the glass between the racks. But now the idea is blooming in different ways.
It’s the giving season, so don’t forget to give yourself a little indulgence too. At these places, you can flex some epicurean shopping into the precious gift of little downtime.
