Somewhat stumbled on this place Saturday afternoon while exploring Sebastopol on foot. Â Definitely a good place to sit and try some wines. Â Lots to choose from, reasonably price tastings - most $2 per tasting, and an extremely knowledgeable hostess. Â My wife and I happened to be the only 2 people there for a little while and Micaela was very accommodating giving suggestions on what we should try based on our preferences - and they were all good choices. Â The customer service and friendliness is enough to come back, let alone the wine.
Review Source:James and Michela serve up some of the best "off the beaten track" wines ever. Â I'm not much into wine tasting-- I prefer to call it "think and drink" --but 2 visits to this store have made me a believer. Â Sure, you can drive around to wineries and attempt to source your own "one-off" bottles (come on...no winery could stay in business producing only small batches!), but you'd miss the opportunity to compare the unique flavors that some of these great local wineries carried by WE are now producing. Â One word of caution: Â if you like wine, be prepared to walk out with at least 4 bottles! Â you've been warned!
Review Source:I guess i expected a little more from this place... a bottle shop in the middle of wine country; I wanted to find bottlings of wines I never heard of or small batch single vineyard offerings from the locals. Â the staff was knowledgeable but didnt seem happy to watch me browse a bit... Â the prices are fair... the hours arent the most convenient, but you arent going to find many other options in Sebastapol, so it gets an A-Ok from me.
Review Source:Small tasting bar in Sebastopol and I beleive it is the only one in that area except the Starlight wine bar. Selections are very good, friendly staff and pour was decent with some nice bread and good quality Olive oil.
Owner was very friendly and gave a good idea about the appellations around and how he picks the wine for his store.
Overall a positive experience. Only improvement I would suggest is some more work on the ambience and introduction of tasting flights.
Not bad, but short selection and pushy service. What they do carry is generally good, but don't go expecting to find the odd bottle, because chances are they won't have it. The salespeople have a way of following you around, which can be disconcerting. That said, the selection is still way better than you can get anywhere else in Sebastopol, Pacific Market included.
Review Source:We drove into Sebastopol (neat little downtown) late this Saturday afternoon with dinner at friends' on our docket for the evening. Â Empty handed at the moment, I turned to my trusty iPhone Yelp app and did a search on "wine". Â Lucky me, there was 1 review for a place called the Wine Emporium. Â There couldn't have been a better name!
Our rush to get to our friends' house was slowed a bit by the sighting of a sign that said "Tasting". Â If memory serves me right, Al was the purveyor and he was delightful in giving us the lay of the land and pouring us a nice glass of riesling.
The shop is sensibly layed out by varietal and price, and the selection is excellent. Â Not only is the local region well represented but he also stocks a terrific supply of foreign stuff. Â We grabbed a bottle of the Poet's Leap rielsing, two Chateauneuf du Pape's and my staple...Rombauer chard.
If we didn't have the dinner engagement begging, I could have parked it for a while at the Wine Emporium. Â Check it out!
Many eons ago (well, it feels that way) I used to reside on the outskirts of the humble Sonoma County village of Sebastopol. Sebastopol, to me, has a small town charm unusual in California. While the downtown has become slightly more upscale, the place is largely as we found it when we last lived here. Of course, they are some subtractions and some additions. K & L Bistro is a welcome add. In the Sebastopol of yesteryear, fine dining was more easily found elsewhere. And it was only after we left Sebastopol that we realized our neighbors were growing or producing some of the very excellent Pinots and Chardonnays.
We had a chance to spend a couple of hours strolling around this past Saturday and we walked by a new (to me) interesting looking wine shop. (What caught my fancy was the tasting bar. I have always thought this is a great way to buy wine.). We did not go in. My wife had two glasses of white with lunch and had her sights set on other prey. But downtown is not big and we finished our loop and had time to check the wine shop out.
James, the proprietor, greeted us and welcomed us to his shop. He gave us a little intro about their approach. They do not carry thousands of labels. They do not carry only local or only French. His approach is to buy wines of quality that reflect good value for their price. He then learns his clients preferences so that he can help them find wines they will love. He has hard-to-find local bottles and lovely European labels. Even better, he has a lot of bottles available to taste.
We spent a lovely hour and a half with James. My wife tasted two whites and two reds. We came home several incredible bottles for the "cellar". He is not your usual salesman. He told us a lot about his background and how he got into wine. His knowledge was impressive.
Oenophiles visiting Sonoma County looking to do more than survey the often pedestrian local wineries and, instead taste a range of wonderful wines, would do well to stop in and see James. We were heading to dinner (see Farmhouse Inn review) so we did not partake in his small menu of edibles, but next time...
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