Welcome to our first review of one of our favorite afternoon date spots in Houston, TX. A place to come enjoy a glass of wine or a bottle if you need to take a break from the stress of work and enjoy the beautiful weekends we have here. Also if you need to break the ice on a first date, I like to refer to a quote by Louis Pasteur, a bottle of wine contains more philosophy than all the books in the world. So try it out and impress that special someone, and if it doesn’t work out at least you have wine in the end.
Vinology Bottle Shop and Tasting Room is a unique wine bar once entering into the shop you are welcomed with hundreds of bottles from around the world and a welcoming staff to help make your wine tasting experience smooth and stress free. In the photo attached we enjoyed 6 different wines and the nice thing about Vinology is when you do your wine tastings they bring all the bottles to your table so you are able to truly understand what you are drinking and compare them. This is not something we were used to, as normally we would get a card describing the wine, however with Vinology, you are able to put a bottle to the name. Now, after you are done tasting if you love this bottle turn around and grab one to-go from the shelf because almost all the bottles you taste are also available for sale.
What do you do when it comes to tasting the wine? Why do restaurants pour a sample pour of wine when you order a bottle? Why does the waiter just stand there when I am supposed to sample? What do you do in order to not look like you do not know what you are doing? How can you make it to where you are not embarrassed of yourself to your date, friends or co-workers? Well don’t worry we are going to walk you through how to look like a pro in three simple steps and impress everyone at your table.
- See – you want to hold your glass up and see the natural light through your wine, if you are drinking Red wine place your fingers under the glass while tilting it sideways. The color will indicate a few different things: climate of the grapes, flavor and age (we will dive into this in another post)
- Swirl – by doing this about 10x it will allow more oxygen into the wine resulting in a release of the wine’s aromas and flavors, this is called “volatizing the esters”
- Smell – don’t be shy on this one, stick your nose right into your glass and breath in deeply. You can perform this by putting the side of glass you would drink from and then lowering your nose into the glass. This part is so important with noticing the aroma and trying to understand what comes to your mind first, this is supposed to be the fun part!
- Sip – of course now you sip and move the wine around in your mouth. Notice if the three steps above are in line with what you are tasting.
The reason we enjoy this wine bar during the afternoon is the passion we see in the owners that seems to come to light in this hour. This bar sits in the Montrose District in Houston, for those that have been here it is a rare neighborhood full of art and diversity. This is the perfect place to socialize and mingle with new friends with the concept of Vinology being: “the best way to sell wine is to allow customers to taste before they buy…their passion for discovering, pairing and sharing wine began over 16 years ago.” With pop-up wine sales, producer tastings, wine dinners and cellar sourcing.
Our Favorite flights: We had the Malbec ($15) and Silician ($23) flight. Each flight comes with three glasses of wine and some appertivo is available as well at the bar to enjoy small bites during your tastings. It’s important when going to a wine bar that you have variety. The menu here changes on a monthly basis. This helps the clients continue to grow new favorite wines and their pallet while also coming back for more. One interesting thing they do when pouring the wine is keeping the corks in the bottle they pour which simply aerates it for each pour. Although this keeps the wine fresh ,one of the downsides is there will be a tiny amount of cork remnants that can get inside of your glass. However, utilizing this will pour a perfect glass and enables the same glass for each customer.
Interior: When it comes to wine shops the most important thing to do inside is create a relaxing experience while your on a date, with friends, or coming time and time again is the atmosphere. The inside of Vinology has rustic wood all around to give a warm and welcoming feeling, however there is also a touch of modern appeal for a fresh clean look to the inside. The downfall is there are not a lot of lounge area’s to sit. This place is more to mingle with other customers at the bar or the few table tops around the shop. When it comes to the menu they do not have one, so you can look at their chalk board menu at the front. This shows off the creativity side and also the thought in our opinion that they want to bring everyone together. However, from a customer standpoint they need a paper copy to add more functionality.
Overall this is a fantastic place to try new world wines and old world wines. The staff is fantastic and extremely welcoming. I encourage you to try this on a nice sunny afternoon that we often have in Houston. We hope you enjoyed this and take the opportunity to visit this stop as well and provide your feedback on the experience you had to help us understand what our viewers love as well.
Visit Vinology: https://vinology.mybindo.com/
Thank you,
Wine’In Texas
Wine'in Texas 