Vinosyr wine bar
Wine bars are coming to Russia, to Moscow at least.
Wine bars are usually the last wine thing to come in a country newly converted to wine (but is Russia really a newbee in wine?), long after the full wine sections in the supermarkets and the opening of specialized wine shops. It is one thing to sell wine in the retail sector but is usually a much more arduous one to have people come to a place just to buy a glass of wine and stay afloat in this business. It is already a challenge in the West, so imagine in a country discovering wine where not so long ago the only available wines were low-quality wines from Moldova, Southern Russia or Bulgaria. Some such wine bars were short lived and closed, but some others keep sprouting in Moscow under the impulse of daring sommeliers or passionate businessmen. Anatoly Sokolov is one of the latter and while he does not come from the restaurant business, he said in an interview that he wanted long ago to open a wine bar. And he opened Vinosyr last november (2006). The wine bar is located in the center of Moscow, near Pushinskaya-Tverskaya subway station, just a few meters down from the vibrant Tverskaya Avenue. The Malyi Palashevsky street is located just on the left of the "M" sign of the Pushkinskaya-Tverskaya subway station, on the other side of Tverskaya Ave. After going down a few steps to a basement, the bar's interior style strikes at first glance: a long table going from one side of the bar to the other, and a dim red light bathing the whole room. Architect Yuri Nenashev is the man behind the decoration and lighting. The long table is the backbone of this roughly 60-square-meters bar, and the lighting, which is well thought here, comes partly from the middle of the table itself.
the long table. We sat at the other end and checked the wine list, all the while looking at the nice and warmful deco and lighting. There's a rather good pop-rock music selection here too. Designer Yuri Nenashev really succeded to make of this single-room basement a nice, welcoming venue. After Aya brought us the wine list, we made our choice. I chose a South-African white (a blend with Riesling). To be frank, I checked the column on the right first, because Moscow being officially the most expensive city in the world for the 2nd year in a row, I feared excessive prices. Prices here are reasonable, going roughly from 120 Rbls (100 Russian Rubles = 2,85 Euro or 4 USD) to 160 Rbls. Of course, this is more expensive than Paris were you can have a glass of Jo Landron's Muscadet at 1,4 Euro (Le Baron Rouge), but, hey, this is Moscow... You can have a partial glance at the wine list on this page, on the prices and volumes that is, because for some reason, the text itself (which is in Cyrillic anyway) doesn't show properly. As you can see, there is a long list of wines-by-the-glass and also of bottles, which can be the best choice to do if there are several people in your party. The first price for bottles is 350 Rbls. The wines come from both the New World and the Old World (no Russian wines here). Lena, Alexei and Volodia chose a Chilean red, Errazuriz Estate Merlot 2005. Chile wines have often the best quality-price ratio these days in Russia. The Russian wine market is hampered by the complexity and the hurdles of the import process, and good, affordable individual-grower wines (like the ones of France for example) don't make it easily to here. To go with the wine you can order an assortment of several cheeses (including goat cheese) for 350 Rbls the plate, which makes good appetizers for several people.The wine bar is opened 7 days a week and its opening hours will soon (september) be from 6pm to 6am. Seems that it is the right spot to hang out for a glass in Moscow's After Hours.
I am going to Moscow next year... I will go here!!!
How are the prices?
BTW Love those funny girls
~Kotehok~
Posted by: Stephanie Michelle Hollenberg | February 21, 2009 at 11:04 AM