We love wine. We love wine a lot. And so do these folks.
HOMESPUN FOODS
Every Sunday we are doing a no corkage BYOB night at Homespun for Dinner, so you can bring your own special bottle of wine that you’ve been waiting to share with friends and loved ones, without paying any corkage fee. We’re hoping this can turn into a thing, and people will bring out some special bottles on Sunday nights, and we can help turn Sundays into a bit of a wine hang here in Beacon. Here are some of our very favorite wine shops in the Hudson Valley, where you can undoubtedly pick up that special bottle!
Best Wine Stores in the Hudson Valley & Catskills
BEACON
Artisan Wine Shop — Opened in 2006 (the same year as Homespun Foods), Artisan played a big part in raising the culinary bar for Beacon. Specializing in a broad array of wines from around the globe, as well as a diverse portfolios of spirits (check out the mezcal section!), you can always find something new and exciting at a great price. The staff is also really awesome, with advice from anything from picking a bottle, to working out a food and wine pairing, to finding that perfect cooking wine for your risotto.
Dirty Bacchus — Steve Ventura opened Dirty Bacchus smack dab in the middle of the pandemic and hasn’t looked back. Specializing in natural wines from around the globe, everything in the shop is organic, vegan (if this is a head-scratcher for you, it means no egg white fining to filter the wine in the cellar) and everything has a bare minimum of sulphur, if any at all. The wines here are wild and from off the beaten path, think Moravia, Georgia, & Quebec. The thing I love about this shop, is that Steve tastes a lot of wine, and he follows his palate. A lot of natural wine shops can quickly become a place of collecting allocations and moving allocations, but Steve picks wines he loves, and it shows. Last May, Dirty Bacchus was featured in the drinks-industry-leading online magazine PUNCH, as one of America’s Best Specialty Wine Shops. Right on, Steve.
Steve Ventura of Dirty Bacchus. Photo Credit : The Highlands Current
Paul Brady Wine — Paul Brady Wine here in Beacon focuses on all New York State products, featuring both on and off premise selections, meaning they’re both a wine store and a wine bar. I asked Paul how he would describe the shop, and he said, “We specialize in all New York wines, ciders, beers and spirits. Our motto is simple: to advocate for New York State agriculture and have a great time doing it.” You can find great selections here from both iconic growers as well as the avant-garde new generation of growers working here in New York State. With everything that has been bubbling in the city in natural wine for the past 20 years, it is an exciting time in New York Wine, and Paul Brady is a great place to track that energy.
COLD SPRING
Blacksmith Wines. Truly a striking space. Cold Spring, NY. Photo Credit : Blacksmith Wines
Blacksmith Wines — Located in an old Blacksmith shop in Cold Spring, Blacksmith Wines focuses on a very specific niche, they sell wines from the greatest estates in the world in a multitude of vintages, that are incredibly hard to source through normal channels. The type of wines you tell your kids about years later. The Burgundy you only have one shot to ever taste, the Champagne from a vintage you thought didn’t exist anymore, the Barolo from a grower who sold his parcel of a certain vineyard more than a generation ago, those types of wines. The shop is also run by two of the best NYC sommeliers of the last twenty years, Kristie Petrullo Campbell and Charles Puglia. Kristie was Chef Sommelier at Jean-Georges, and prior to that she worked as a Sommelier at some of the best dining rooms in the city, including Craft, DANIEL, and Eleven Madison Park. When I first met Charles, he was Beverage Director at Blue Hill at Stone Barns where he worked for a number of years, after that Charles moved to take on the Beverage Director position at Le Coucou, Chef Daniel Rose’s extraordinary paean to French gastronomy. While there he also wrote the opening wine lists for Pastis and Verōnika. These two have major chops and connections and can source some crazy wines from crazy growers and vintages. Both have travelled extensively and understand wine on a deep level. The space is incredibly unique as well, feeling somewhere between a European wine cellar and an American horse stable, with a touch of the modern feel one might expect of a luxe loft somewhere in the Chelsea.
Blacksmith Wines is open Monday through Friday , 10am – 4pm
Flowercup Wine — Opened in 2017 by Cold Spring residents Eliza Starbuck & Eric Wirth, Flowercup Wine opened with the mission of being a retail space that could really add something to the community. Located on Main Street, Flowercup focuses on natural wines and a seasonal approach, helping you select the right wine for your mood, for the weather, the company and the dish. Lots of off the beaten path wines here that more conservative wine stores won’t carry because they’re ‘hand-sells’, things like Rufete, Sagrantino and Poulsard. So pony up, if you’re adventurous, for some great wines in Cold Spring!
WAPPINGERS FALLS
Viscount Wines & Liquor — Located on Route 9 South in Wappingers, Viscount has a great location being so close to Adam’s Fairacre Farms. Viscount prides themselves on their service, selection and price, and they really do offer great value. Sneak away into their glass room in the back with the temperature control and have a wander, you will definitely find some great wine at great prices. I have found difficult to find small grower Champagne here from the likes of Eric Rodez, 2012 Vosne-Romanée from Anne Gros at a great price, as well as some Tempier Bandol Rosé. Stroll the aisles and see what you find, the staff is great too, really helpful and really efficient.
KINGSTON
Kingston Wine Co. — This shop was one of the early innovators in bringing natural wines to the Hudson Valley. They grew a devout Instagram presence, and have been a champion of promoting local organic viticulture through collaborations with the likes of Rose Hill and Wild Arc. Lot so of great bottles within these walls.
Ester Wine & Spirits — Newcomer to N Front street, Ester Wine & Spirits has a really fun selection natural wines, and really great value selections. You will have no trouble finding nervy, vibrant, fun natural wines here, and a nice selection of Beaujolais to boot!
Ester Wine & Spirits, Kingston, NY. Photo Credit : Ester Wine
HUDSON
Grapefruit Wines — Located on Warren Street, Grapefruit has a lot of fun libations, including wines, ciders, co-ferments, amari, & apertifs. Located down the street from Kitty’s, this shop has what you need to pair something phenomenal with that Schnitzel! Also check out their Wine Share program, where the staff hand selects 2-4 wines for you each month. Go get adventurous!
Hudson Wine Merchants — So this shop is a big reason why I personally moved upstate. When I worked at il Buco, we had to close down for a couple of weeks during Superstorm Sandy, everything south of 14th St had to close. It was wild. I decided to drive upstate and visit Hudson because a lot of guests and co-workers kept telling me what a great town it is. I threw my bicycle on the back of the Buick and drove upstate. At every off-ramp at every service station, the queue of cars waiting for gas overflowed out onto the highway shoulders, because everyone from Jersey was coming up trying to get gas for their generators. It was a wild time. I stayed across the river in Athens, did a bunch of cycling, and would wander over to Hudson at night. I remember walking into this shop and being blown away. There were old vintages of Bordeaux, Brunello, there were crazy natural wines you often didn’t even see in the city, there was a bottle of Carema from a grower I had never heard of, there was a bottle of Jasnieres from the Loire. What is this place, I thought. Anyhow, that night planted a seed in my head, maybe you can work in food and wine and not have to live in a major urban market like NYC, SF or LA. This was the blueprint. It was possible. You could follow your vision and not pander to a market. I have worked events with the owner Michael Albin since then, and he is a great guy with a ton of passion for what he does. They do classes upstairs as well, and this is totally worth a trip if you’ve never been.
MARLBORO
The Wine Store — Marlboro is really lucky to have such a great wine shop. Joseph Cricchio opened the store 8 years ago, he explains, “Well, if I am being honest, The Wine Store found me. I was bartending by night at a NOLA cocktail bar on the Upper East Side and Managing an Italian restaurant in Queens during the day. I was on the brink of burnout when my parents asked if I would be interested in purchasing a wine shop in Marlboro.” Joseph told me about the feeling of the first deliveries showing up and hoping he could sell all of these wines, well eight years later, the shop is doing great, and features not only biodynamic Champagne and Burgundy, but also great everyday wines at great prices. The best wine shops do both, special occasion wines and Tuesday night wines can intermingle on the shelves, each with an abundance of quality.
Some top shelf selections at The Wine Store in Marlboro. Photo Credit : The Wine Store
ACCORD
Bluebird Wine — I like fun. I like music. I like Bluebird.
I reached out to Aaron on what separates his store from the herd and makes them so unique. Rather than parse out his words, I liked his reply so much, I want to include it in full, it makes a lot of sense to me on where their vibe comes from—
“I spent many years working in record stores in another lifetime and I try and run Bluebird more like that than a "traditional" wine shop. When people walk in the door we want them to feel like there is always something new to discover and we want them to take the time to dig around and ask questions and really engage in a conversation rather than it being so straightforward and transactional. We want to demystify and make the shop approachable and hopefully they walk out with something they were after or something new they've never tried.”
As somebody who has spent a lot of time in record stores, I love that idea of ‘oh you like that… you’ll love this!’ and the sense of discovery and milling around til you find something that grabs you.
LIVINGSTON MANOR
Upstream Wine & Spirits — Out in Livingston Manor in the Western Catskills, Upstream features a whole host of organic and biodynamic wines. We were out there this past summer for a camping trip, and I was so impressed with the shop. So many fun wines, we walked out with a bottle of COS ‘Rami’, a delicious white wine from Sicily from Insolia & Grecanico. The area is beautiful as well, and has a lot of nice restaurants, diners, BBQ stands and breweries. Worth a trip!
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