Tracey A.
Yelp
Verve and I are going to be seeing a lot of each other.
It's recently come to my attention, after a visit to Verve, that my favorite way to drink wine is pretty much anyplace I can purchase a bottle at retail cost and consume that bottle on-site with little or no additional mark-up. If I can do that in a place with a stunning interior, one that makes me feel better than I actually am, all the better.
Verve and I? We're going to be BFFs.
The original Verve is a wine shop in NYC's Tribeca. The concept is improved upon in San Francisco. Intimately surrounded by walls of wines, priced from completely reasonable (bottles can be found in the $20 range) to completely unreasonable, there's something here for every price point.
The staff is well-versed in directing you to a selection should you be capable of describing what it is you like and throw no shade if you start by saying "I like something in the $40 and under range...". Once you've decided on a bottle, swanky glassware with the thinnest of stems is laid in front of you, and that bottle is yours to enjoy. Seated communally at the gorgeous natural stone tabletop that dominates the entire center of the shop, sharing wine with your friends, you will surely strike up conversation at some point with those nearby. What a lovely invitation.
Verve has a couple of oddities that I think they could improve upon:
* Wine flights can be had here but there's no printed information on pricing provided to guests; and
* Food is of the cheese/charcuterie genre and they were out of much of it at the time I visited.
That said, I wasn't interested in food or flights during my visit so I had nary a complaint to register.
It's fair to say I have a big old crush on Verve.