Many people are starting to cultivate a taste for wine. But it is not practical to go buy a hundred bottles if you just want a sip of each. So the wine bar has become a hangout to meet friends, socialize, and exercise the vino palette.

If a bar is a good place for watching several football games at once, riding a mechanical bull, or meeting Hell’s Angels, it is probably not going to be a stellar wine bar. They might not even have any wine!. So seek out a specialty wine bar if you are interested in exploring vintages.

Wine Bar Culture

Wine bars have different personalities, just like any other eating and drinking place. Some may be as frou-frou as the most expensive restaurants, staffed by the most picky wine experts and patronized by the social-page crowd.

And yet the right wine bar can also be a very comfortable place. Most proprietors make a point of having a wine-tasting or wine education night once a month or so. For a set price, you can “take a tour of California” or “sample France’s Best”. You get a few drinks of each of the wines on the set menu and an expert tells you about how the wines are made, why they taste different, and how they best compliment meals. The bar will provide the palette-cleansing crackers, and the oh-so-classy pails to spit the wine into.

Wine bars also tend to be a comfortable place for people who do not like the “bar scene”. While most people are there to drink wine, there is generally no hard alcohol, and there are most usually lots of non-alcoholic selections. The decoration tends to be classy and comfortable: think couches or intimate tables rather than barstools or standing room only.

Many cities are also starting to see the combination coffee-wine bar. These places serve coffee all day and wine in the evening. Usually full meals and small snacks are on the menu too. Look for free wifi or board games to play in these mellow, quiet hangouts. This is the sort of place to finish your great unfinished novel.

And, of course, there is the wine-only wine bar for serious aficionados. These places look like a wine shop, with nothing but piles of bottles. People who know what they want meet like-minded wine fans and try the most unusual specialties here.