Local local local
Posted on June 29th, 2009 – 4:30 PMBy Bill Ward
In an America where banks and other businesses are “too big to fail,” it’s nice sometimes to turn our attention to the little guys, the smaller wineries and retail outlets that are trying to make their marks. Or just make it, period. The other day, I visited such a place, a new store in Plymouth called Vinifera.
What a delightful surprise. Shoehorned into a nondescript strip mall (is there a strip mall anywhere that is non-nondescript, and if so, would that make it “descript”?), the store is a narrow but very welcoming space. There’s one rack apiece of craft beer and spirits, but the focus is definitely on wine. The selection is beautifully chosen, the prices more than fair. Several wines scattered around the store proffered some nice sale prices.
The father-son tandem of Christian and Dave Nesheim maight have taken on a Sisyphusian task, but their store is a soothing oasis near the bustling interesdection of Hwys. 6 & 101.
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St. Cloud wine educator Kent Benson wrote an incisive article about wine terminology for a recent edition of Wines & Vines. This local wine watchdog does a good job of keeping me on my toes on this and other oenological matters.
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Add Papa’s Deli in North Minneapolis to the list of local restaurants with half-price wines a couple of nights a week, on Monday and Tuesday.
Also, the Lake Elmo Inn is waiving corkage on bottles purchased at the Cellars as long as the wine is not on their list. You’ll need to bring along the receipt from the store.
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One of the great quaffing events of the summer, Haskell’s Beer & Wine Cruise, boards at 5:30 p.m. sharp on July 14 at Harriet Island in St. Paul. Cost for the 14th annual event is $50 for Bacchus Society members, $55 for non-members. Call 612-342-2437, ext. 921 for more info.
One response to "Local local local"
It’s nice to see another Wine store in Plymouth, but unfortunately the selection they show on their website really isn’t that distinctive compared to other places in town.
We came back from Argentina about a month ago and even though 90% of the wine we tried is exported to the US, you can only find 10-15% of them in Minneapolis. The only ones easy to find seem to be Trapiche, Norton, and Catena. This would be OK if everyone didn’t carry the same producers.
Many of the wineries in Argentina are small, but there’s some great wines to be found. You can find some of the Benegas wines in town (which are amazing IMO) but other than that there’s very little wine you can find from these smaller producers.
I hope as we finish some of the wines we purchased we’ll be able to special order them, but until then I’ll just stick with the places I currently go until I find a more distinctive selection of South American wines.
