Simply D’Vine: the combination of a wine bar and wine shop in Florida offers a delightful experience. But in New York State it would be against the law. Time to get changed.
Barring Wine Bars
The distribution and sale of wine and spirits vary from state to state. Governed by the fossilized State Liquor Authority, New York operates under irrational, outmoded rules with a legacy going back to Prohibition. Regulations generally favor large wholesalers at the expense of the consumer. For example, a wine bar and a retail wine store, an inherently logical pairing, cannot be combined. The point hit home when I recently visited such a combined operation in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and thought how nice it would be to have a shop like this in East Hampton.
Naked Grape Wine Co. is located in an undistinguished, generic, South Florida storefront in the Wilton Manors area, but this is the only thing that was ordinary. Once you walk through the door, you are in a spare, modern space, surrounded by sleek, rich materials and a welcoming atmosphere. The tasteful contemporary design would be at home in Manhattan or the East End of Long Island.
The wines shelves are organized in a grid pattern with a display arm holding a bottle in front of each square, making it simple to read the label. The small bar toward the back is a gathering place, and a few bar height tables and a couple of sofas are relaxing places to drink and chat. It’s a very handsome place, but even more impressive is the way it functions. It serves the buyer efficiently and intelligently. You can sip wine at the bar and if you really enjoy what’s in your glass, you can buy a bottle on the spot to take home. Or if you’re inspired to discover more, you can get up and browse the shelves. Many people who come in to make purchases, I noticed, stop for a quick glass.
Naked Grape has about 400 wines displayed, certainly enough for most of us to choose from, and offers a dozen or so wines by glass, as well as some interesting beers. Both the retail and bar selections are well thought out and reasonably priced. By the glass—the pour is quite generous—the wines cost from six dollars to ten dollars. You can also choose any of the wines in the store, and for the retail price plus a five dollar corkage fee, drink the bottle there. That is quite a bargain when you consider that in a New York restaurant or bar we typically pay three or four times retail price for a bottle of wine.
Although Naked Grape does not serve food, it is an informal and friendly enough neighborhood place that people bring in snacks. A woman next to me at the bar brought in tea and a cookie from a tea room next door, and a man at the end of the bar had some soup delivered. The owner, Brian BeCraft, has kept his concept clear and simple. His card includes a logo saying “Simply d’Vine.” I’d go further and say the place is focused on people just as much as it is on wine.
It works for many reasons, not least because it is permitted to work in Florida. Isn’t it about time the State Liquor Authority in New York woke up, caught up with the times, and started to think more about the consumer?
