There aren’t many places in Sherman Oaks—or anywhere in Los Angeles—where you can stumble in and order a glass of Domaine Weinbach Gewurztraminer from 1994, followed by a glass of 1967 Grand Puy-Lacoste Bordeaux. But rare vintage wines are the draw at Augustine Wine Bar where David Gibbs and Dustin Lancaster offer up aged wines daily, scrawling the offerings by hand on a chalkboard. They’re painstaking in their pursuit of the old and rare, procuring these finds through estate sales and auctions, as well as their relationships with wineries. They take the buying risk so you don’t have to: most wines, even the old ones, are available to try before you commit to a glass. The decor is quaint and old-fashioned, with vintage typewriters, books and radios adorning the dimly lit space, while the food is simple and savory—charcuterie plates, platters of tater tots and chicken milanese with a carrot-top pesto—all of it meant to support the subtleties of older wines without overpowering them. The straight-forward approach is working: Augustine just celebrated its eight-year anniversary.
Augustine Wine Bar is part of our Top 30 LA List of 2023. Read the whole story here.
Based in Los Angeles, California, Alissa Bica is the Spirits Editor and Critic at Wine & Spirits. She is also a Certified Sommelier and co-runs the home wine tasting company, Côte Brune and Blonde. In any rare moments of free time, she writes about obscure grape varieties in the blog Off the Beaten Wine Path.
This story appears in the print issue of Spring 2023.
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