1) Crush Wine: Best wine tastings. Fine dining wine served in fine dining setting with great stemware. When you buy here, there’s no fear of bringing the same bottle to a party as your buddy from across town (Prom Night nightmare for the wine fan set). Search for these wines, and they’ll only come up on Crush’s site. Strong for small producers and values on collector quality wine. Best for French, German, interesting California. Not much Pacific Northwest (a lot of those wineries work with direct sales). Organization of store by grape is a bold and valid choice. http://www.crushwineco.com. As a bonus, staff look and act like something out of “High Fidelity.” Grand Cru wine geeks.
2) Le Dû’s Wines: Owner has best palate in the Village. No duds, no Yellow Tail. Wonderfully deep in French. Great price range. Just getting to know them. http://www.leduwines.com
3) Sherry-Lehmann: Greatest depth and breadth in fine wine, especially Grand and Premier Cru French. Where to go for Margaux, futures, big names and to run into really rich people. If you happen to need a bottle of white Port for ten bucks, they have that too. http://www.sherry-lehmann.com
4) PJ’s Wine: Some exceptional values and rarities. Once found an obscure Muller Thurgau here at a steep discount over one other place in town that carried it. Same wine served in Alto. Delivery at 100 dollar mark (versus 150 most places), so remote location isn’t a problem. Wonderful selection of Spanish wine that surpasses the expensive East Siders. http://www.pjwine.com
5) Union Square Wines: USQ has a pretty amazing marketing device in its new tasting machines. We’ll see how it holds up. The new Barnes&Noble of wine. http://www.unionsquarewines.com
Gray and Grizzled Food Fan 