Bed-Vyne Wine

Any delivery of booze will be with you, ready to pour, in sixty minutes or less. Given that we seem to spend half our lives waiting in socially distant lines these days, Drizly’s expedient promise is an alluring one. Several of our colleagues swear by their (very) regular deliveries of wine from local-to-them stores in NYC and LA. Hop on the app and lose an hour scrolling through the bulging lists of your favorite neighborhood spots. It almost feels like going out. Almost.

Helen’s lore goes something like this: Sommelier Helen Johannesen started with a tiny, small-producer-forward wine store tucked in the back of Fairfax staple Jon & Vinny’s. Popularity exploded, a wine club was born, and a second location opened in Brentwood. If you’re not already a member of Helen’s Wine Club, now is a great time to join. We look forward to our delivery of limited production wines with handy tasting cards to help expand our palate every month. Otherwise, hop online; browse Johannesen’s smartly organized virtual store; edit your choices by price, country, wine type, style, or region; and get the corkscrew ready.

Disclaimer: Le Cru is pricey. It’s pricey because it’s a European-producer-based subscription service. To be specific, smaller European producers who don’t make the volume or perhaps have the resources to export to the States (making wine is expensive). A curated case of six bottles from say, Catalonia or Piedmont starts at $155, and shipping is free. If this sounds interesting, visit Le Cru’s excellent website, which has details on the various vintners it supports, along with approachable videos explaining the particulars of the regions it buys from.

The man behind Maison Noir Wines also happens to be a former sommelier at both Per Se and The French Laundry. André Hueston Mack specializes in bottling and blending the finest grapes grown in small Oregon wineries. Mack takes a contemporary approach to an age-old industry with bottles wrapped in graffiti-inspired labels and wines with names like Bottoms Up, Knock on Wood, and our personal favorite, P-Oui Pinot Noir. Order online for multi-state delivery—and go for a mixed case to get a real taste of what Maison Noir is about.

Rock Juice is the closest you can get (tied with Peoples in NYC) to a digital personal sommelier. San Francisco–based Melissa Gisler Modanlou is a former restaurateur, advanced sommelier, and a serious tastemaker when it comes to natural wine. Modanlou’s dedication to shipping and serving (and sipping) wines free from coloring agents, stabilizers, and flavor manipulators caught our attention. Rock Juice mainly stocks bottles from vintners and importers the team knows personally and vets for quality. Sign up to receive a box of three, six, or twelve bottles monthly, bimonthly, or quarterly. Each delivery comes with detailed tasting notes and information on the producers. (We like to hang on to these paper gems and note the producers in regions we’re hoping to visit, so we can see the magic for ourselves.) To sign up with Rock Juice is to expand your palate and try rarely exported and never-seen-at-the-supermarket bottles from the cozy comfort of home base.

Getting into wine has a tick-the-box quality. Region: tick. Varietal: tick. Terroir: tick. But having someone walk you through those ticks makes delving into oenophilia doable. SommSelect offers three monthly clubs defined by theme (this one is the most affordable at $99 monthly and perfect for novices), SommSelect favorites, and guided blind tasting. For those who want to go deep, the sommelier concierge option tailors cases to your specific palate and budget (this is more suited to those who know their way around a wine cave). Lastly, Ian Cauble of Netflix’s Somm fame, is the maestro behind every bottle selection.

WOW stands for Woman-Owned Wineries, which is the foundational credo of Amy Bess Cook’s Sonoma-centric wine club. When you consider that only 10 percent of the lead winemakers in the thousands of California wineries are women, the absolute necessity of WOW’s rallying call sinks in. On the site you’ll find an invaluable directory of female-owned wineries and winemakers in the United States, plus details of the subscription service. You’ll also find an informative blog that spotlights the work of these female vintners and delves into the layered process of harvesting and producing a bottle of wine. Better yet, one dollar from every sale of WOW’s June shipment benefits the ACLU. Image courtesy of Kelly Puleio.

Farm, forage, ferment is the credo farmer and biodynamic winemaker Krista Scruggs lives by. Scruggs ferments grapes for wine and apples for cider with no nasties (herbicides, synthetic pesticides, or other additives) in Vermont. Sometimes Scruggs goes rogue and coferments the grapes and apples for a wine-meets-cider hybrid that you absolutely must taste. Join Scruggs’s Counterspell Club to receive the latest Zafa wines and other members-only perks throughout the year direct to your doorstep.

Thursday through Saturday, Echo Park’s sexiest bar, Bar Bandini, is offering curbside pickup. The goods: organic, biodynamic wines from the best of small-batch producers around the world. Also on the roster are the ultimate in refreshing, nonalcoholic beverages, effervescent Topo Chico, and Mexican Coke. We have spent many a night munching oozy grilled cheese and sipping glasses of whatever was on tap in the dark, moody confines of this vibey bar, and we would like to continue doing so once this pandemic passes. If you’re a dedicated Eastsider, keep the booze buy local and order a bottle or two from the Bandini stash.

Every neighborhood needs a good local pizza joint, and the latest offering from chef Zach Pollock of nearby Alimento is exactly that, Italian-American comfort food done really well. Cosa Buona occupies the space that was Pizza Buona since 1959, but with a significant upgrade. Chef Pollock and his team have modernized the space with a marble bar and plenty of dark tile. The booze list—heavy with French and Italian natural wines—is concise, and the mozzarella sticks are without question, the best in the city.

No, Desierto Alto is not in LA (though it does deliver throughout Los Angeles County on Fridays). Still, given the frequency of locals road-tripping to Joshua Tree, we consider that patch of the desert LA-adjacent. Desierto Alto is the newish brainchild of three former wine professionals who have an affinity for the Yucca Valley. It’s stocked with all manner of liquors, wines, cheeses, and excellent iced tea, and all are available for delivery within the Joshua Tree/Pioneertown/Yucca Valley/Flamingo Heights area. If you’re further afield and absolutely must have an icy bottle of Grüner Veltliner on the table, get in touch with the Desierto Alto team and they’ll do their best to accommodate.

With a heavy focus on natural and low-intervention bottles, Domaine LA is one of the city’s most revered wine shops—and now it’s delivering. We like to pick up the phone, roughly describe our preferences and budget, and savor the selection pulled together for us. You can, of course, specify specific bottles or stick to that drinkable Montepulciano you’ve been pouring since 2008, but trusting the selection to the more-than-capable Domaine staffers feels like having your own personal sommelier.

Esters has long been a good hangout for a glass or two and a cheese board after work. The wine list runs a staggering twenty-eight pages long and is broken down not by region but by taste, which makes landing on a bottle so much easier.

Kismet is one of the most refreshing restaurants in Los Angeles, not because the Mediterranean food naturally leans healthy but because it’s not trying to be healthy. Sommelier Kae Whalen curates the wine list. And while you don’t know what you’re getting in advance (embrace the unknown!), breathe easy in the knowledge that, like Kismet’s light, bright Mediterranean-leaning food, the wines are best-in-class and reasonably priced. Order via Caviar for at-home delivery.

With its poured-concrete floors and rustic shelving, Glendale Boulevard’s Silver Lake Wine looks like a wine temple. And in many ways, it is. Bottles, stacked from floor to ceiling, cover every square foot with no real organizing principle (or at least not one that we could figure out), and that’s half the fun. That weird, random bottle you had at a friend’s wedding in Corsica last summer? They probably have it. Call ahead and ask for their top choices or have the knowledgeable staffers point you in the right direction. Order four or more bottles and delivery to several zip codes (check the site) is free.

As much as we miss Saturday strolls around the incredibly serene, beautifully merchandised Psychic Wines, we’re over-the-moon that it delivers. Owner Quinn Kimsey-White applies a deeply personal approach to his store’s offering, sourcing each bottle from tiny vineyards helmed by creative, low-intervention winemakers. An order from Psychic Wines is the perfect opportunity to go rogue and try something completely new.

While Venice is awash in good food options (hello, Gran Blanco), wine stores offering delivery are oddly absent. Venice Beach Wines on Rose is our usual wine bar of choice, and now, it’s (thankfully) delivering its full range of organic and natural wines. Take a look at the detailed tasting notes, choose a bottle, and while you’re at it, order a cheese box to accompany a perfect glass.

There’s something seriously appealing about a store with a point of view. Vinovore focuses its lens on female winemakers, a rare breed in an industry heavily dominated by men. Curbside pickup and delivery to several Los Angeles zip codes are available from the location on Hoover, in that patch of East LA that’s not quite Silver Lake but not East Hollywood proper. When stores reopen, we strongly recommend stopping by for wine, as well as quality tinned fish, charcuterie, and artisanal chocolate. In the interim, we’re deep in the thrall of Vinovore’s wine club, the Wolfpack. Owner and sommelier Coly Den Haan selects two to four female-made natural wines monthly, and tasting notes and pairing suggestions are included in the box.

On a good day, Chambers Street Wines has around 2,000 bottles wedged onto its many shelves and crates, and all of them are available for delivery. In a city packed with excellent wine purveyors, Chambers Street stands out for its dedication to organic, small-production wines and unusual champagnes (yes, there’s a whole world of champagne out there beyond the five or six labels we’re so accustomed to paying top dollar for). Chambers has compiled a slew of what it calls “sampler cases” of wine running the gamut: pét-nat (naturally sparkling), skin-contact (orange wine), red, white, and natural (biodynamic). You can try a case of six or twelve wines of the same type but from different regions and producers to note the variations and nuances of terroir.

Chef restaurateurs Fabian Von Hauske Valtierra and Jeremiah Stone are old hands at Michelin-starred food that’s actually fun to eat. Both Contra and Wildair are shut, but a new, unexpected mashup of the two, Contrair, is open for delivery through Caviar. Rather than merely adapting current menus for delivery, Valtierra and Stone have come up with an entirely new concept that fuses both restaurants’ dedication to seasonality, shareable plates, and New American vibes. Divided into hot, cold, and sweet, the dishes are just the kind of food you crave during—well—a pandemic. Warm, comforting congee; lamb-stuffed cabbage; BBQ chicken; and homey rice pudding. A few dishes off this new menu plus a bottle of something natural and funky-tasting sounds like an ideal night at home in front of Tiger King to us. (Oh, and the duo and their team are delivering weekly lunches and drinks to New York City hospital workers in collaboration with our favorite dumpling spot, Mimi Cheng’s.)

Greenpoint’s Dandelion Wines, helmed by Lily Peachin, revels in sourcing the weirdest small-batch female-produced wines from around the globe. Pre-COVID, this hole-in-the-wall neighborhood store was a treasured spot to stop by, browse a few unusual-looking bottles, and have a couple of sips. Now that experience has gone virtual with online tastings and gorgeous curated six-packs of wine that change weekly. Order via the website (take a look around and pick up some accessibly written wine knowledge while you’re there) for delivery in the New York City area and shipping nationwide.

If you happen to live within a few blocks of the superb Flatiron Wines & Spirits, you can take advantage of free delivery on its full inventory. Its site has a handy “how to buy wine online” section, with tips for both novices and oenophiles, which translates to a full cart in no time. In response to the current crisis, Flatiron Wines has partnered with various California wineries to donate between $10 and $50 per case of certain wines sold to ROAR and the United Sommelier Foundation. If you love restaurants and want to support the chefs and servers who have prepared and served your Saturday suppers over the years, buy a case from this section.

We’re crazy for the Four Horsemen at the best of times, and now our craving for the niche biodynamic wines (available) and lemony bottarga pasta (sadly not) is in full overdrive. The restaurant is delivering a robust selection of natural wines and cocktails hand-batched by head bartender Orlando Franklin McCray. You’ll have to buy a snack to take advantage of cocktails or beer delivery, per the law; we strongly recommend the Spanish ham chips. Place your order through nextdoorspacebk.com.

Le Dû’s Wines in the West Village is offering free shipping in the Tri-State area, which we’re interpreting as an invitation to splurge. Le Dû’s aims to make the often-daunting world of good wine more accessible, and its informative site reflects that credo. If you’re lost on where to begin, scroll down to the bestsellers and follow the pack. Otherwise, enjoy loading your cart with Chenin blanc and Provençal rosé for the hot summer days ahead.

Peoples Wine was one of the 2019 openings we were most psyched about, mainly because we knew, based on our always-stellar experiences at sibling establishments Contra and Wildair, that it would be fantastic. It was, and hopefully it will be again. Until then, the good folks behind the wine bar are now in the wine delivery business. Order online or email delivery@peoples.wine with your preferences and budget for a sommelier-grade selection of small-batch biodynamic and organic wines from the world’s best producers. And, if you're hungry as well as thirsty, check out the founders' new restaurant mash-up delivery concept, Contrair, here.

Brooklynites, rejoice: Bedford Avenue’s Uva is offering free delivery of its extensive selection of wines and spirits to most of the borough, and it’s shipping throughout the state. When it’s open, it’s not unusual to spot a leading NYC restaurateur or a food writer you’re obsessed with browsing the shelves of this small spot alongside locals who know a lot about wine. What we’re saying is that Uva is a wine shop for wine lovers, to the point that it has an entire section devoted to rare and fine bottles. And there are tons of affordably priced, interesting-to-drink bottles, too. If you’re in a curious yet noncommittal mood, click on a $15 bottle of Chilean Cabernet Franc. If you want to splurge or try something entirely new, hit the natural wine section or go wild on unusual champagnes. Uva has it all, and the enthusiastic staffers are available to help.