Caviste Wine Shop

When I was at the Camino wine tasting a few weeks ago, the guy doing the tasting told me about his favorite wine shop in Winston Salem, Caviste. I’d never even heard of it so I was excited to check it out. [locals: it's on Robinhood Road, in the same shopping center as Paul's restaurant just down from Dunkin' Donuts. Don't act like you don't know where that Dunkin' is. ]

 It has a simple store front…

…and is very cozy inside.

I hope this table in the shop means they doing wine pairing dinners!

There was a huge variety of wines, most of which I’d never seen before. The owner was very knowledge, friendly, and helpful. And not snooty. I’ve had bad luck with some wine shop (and beer shop owners) who aren’t very nice to people who don’t know as much about wine as those whose full-time job it is to know everything about wine. Don’t worry about this here – super nice while still being very knowledge about his biz. Plus, there are descriptive labels on the bottles for you to learn about the wines while waiting to chat with him.

The owner was very attentive to each person in the shop, but didn’t float from group to group. He helped one couple, then helped the next person who came in, then the next group. He’d greet you, but it was kind of a wait-your-turn thing, which was weird at first and then I ended up liking the approach; it was like having a personal shopper. He asked what I was planning for dinner and guided me towards many different options to go with it and explained – in plain english! – why each would work with my dish.

He also had a couple of bottles open that he was pouring when some of us grouped around the bar for a tasting. Open bottles, empty glasses? Funny how people congregate towards them.

Definitely check out Caviste Wine Shop if you are in the area! Well worth a trip. Be sure to get on his email list too – it sounds like he does wine classes, wine tastings, and wine cellar building classes. 

Salute!