Small Hours, Northeast Minneapolis’s New Hi-Fi Wine Bar, Is Open | Eater Twin Cities

"When Small Hours opened on Sunday, September 22, I noted it as a hi‑fi wine bar in Northeast Minneapolis from sommelier and wine educator Sarina Garibović and musician Sam Cassidy, with the pair designing the space themselves and Cassidy building most of the cabinets, benches, and bar and rigging vintage speakers and turntables through a new mixer and tube amp into an acoustically treated room that delivers high-fidelity sound without drowning out conversation and that favors playing whole records. Garibović's 100-bottle list is intentionally irreverent and gives ample room to rarer bottles from smaller producers—she aimed to price many bottles around $60 and serves just a handful by the glass—and highlights include several Croatian wines from small producers, a Malvasia with a “bruised fruit” character, and a Chablis from Chateau de Béru described as “really high toned, really citrusy, clean, crisp — kind of nervy, almost”; the menu also includes a few vermouths and aromatized wines and leans toward things people might not see on other lists. Food written with local duo Sisters Mpls offers decadently fatty tinned fish with fresh-baked bread, chicken liver mousse, a housemade terrine, an herb-packed salad, warm olives, and more. Music is as important as wine here—Cassidy says his playlist spans Mariah Carey, obscure jazz, Alice Coltrane, Joni Mitchell, and Curtis Mayfield—and the bar is walk-in only, open Wednesday–Thursday 4 p.m.–11 p.m. and Friday–Saturday 5 p.m.–midnight. Garibović, who co-founded Ženska Glava and came to Minneapolis via Phoenix with family from Pula, intentionally designed Small Hours as a place to list wines she loves rather than as an extension of her wine-education work." - Justine Jones