One of the Country’s Best Wine Shops Is Coming to Shaw | Eater DC

"Named one of 2023’s best wine shops in the U.S. by Wine Enthusiast, this decade-old Black-owned business from husband-wife duo TJ and Hadley Douglas will open its first location outside of Boston in early 2024 at 1301 9th Street NW in Shaw, diagonal from All-Purpose. The D.C. move allows the shop to ship nationwide for the first time and will function as its main distribution hub to support an aggressive goal of becoming the biggest Black-owned wine retailer in the U.S. It will bring its unique wine-buying model—categorizing by body rather than varietal or region under a proprietary progressive scale—to a nearly doubled 4,300-square-foot space that includes a private events room; the Boston home base features a wall of 800 wines from 25 countries plus beer, sake, spirits, and canned cocktails and generates annual revenue approaching $7 million. The expansion is supported by a recently closed financing round from Cambridge Savings Bank, including a $2 million SBA loan. Rooted in an ethos of hospitality and diversity, the Urban Grape has partnered with Boston University to award wine certification courses to people of color and provides mentorship and internship opportunities, with plans to grow nationally, engage HBCUs, and build a career pipeline to radically diversify the wine industry—moves the team says make sense in historically Black Shaw near Howard University, which has a strong, engaged neighborhood." - Tierney Plumb