Bowery & Vine

Profile

Bowery & Vine co-owner Frank Giresi’s relationship with wine spans four generations. His family founded the venerable 20-year-old Nolita wine shop Elizabeth & Vine in the eighties; Giresi's great-grandfather ran a grocery store from the space before that, shilling bootleg wine during Prohibition. The store relocated from Elizabeth Street into this forties-era Bowery building in 2008, and Giresi has taken great pains to preserve the space’s sense of history. The original pine terrazzo flooring, molding, tin ceiling, and honed white-marble countertops remain from the room’s past as a cafeteria, but the 1,800-square-foot shop boasts modern updates, like a refrigerated cold room for pricier bottles, a spacious tasting area, and a vastly expanded selection of spirits. The exhaustive wine collection features wines from around the world—denoted by dozens of miniature flags—including uncommon organic, biodynamic, and kosher picks, like Gramercy Tavern favorite Tishbi. The array of spirits is divided into “dark” and “light” libraries, stressing rare flavors and small producers, like French G.E. Massenez Poire Williams fruit brandy with the pear grown in the bottle, organic 44 North potato vodka from Idaho with huckleberry flavoring, 50-year-old cognac, Zygo caffeinated and taurine-spiked vodka, six kinds of absinthe, and a packed fridge dedicated exclusively to sake. — Lauren Murrow

Wine tastings are conducted Thursday through Saturday.