Vestry Wines

65 Vestry St., at Washington St.; 212-810-2899
Why would a New York wineshop have a California-based consultant? Because one of its owners, Mark Armenante, is besotted with the popular San Francisco restaurant A16 and is good friends with its co-owner and wine director, Shelley Lindgren. When Armenante and his partner, Young Ae Sohn, decided to open Vestry Wines, they enlisted Lindgren’s advice on staff and inventory; she obliged by recommending wine-industry buddies Jim Kuhner (a veteran of Italian Wine Merchants), and Gregory Condes, Gordon Ramsay’s recently departed sommelier. Unlike A16’s acclaimed southern Italian list, Vestry casts a wider net, focusing on smaller producers from Italy, France, and California. (The state, in fact, is the subject of the first in a series of themed weekly tastings, “Quality, Value and California.”) The small shop is outfitted with blond-wood shelving and an innovation that reflects its owners’ software backgrounds: kiosks where customers can trace previous orders, review tasting notes, and rate wine.

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