LIQUID CULTURE: Wine Taps

Late last year, The New York Times reported on the growing trend of wines on tap, a city-centric movement that first caught on at Terroir Tribeca and made its way to Colicchio & Sons and Marcus Samuelsson’s Red Rooster, all thanks to a company called the Gotham Project. A year and a half later, we’ve tasted the bottled, barreled, and casked stuff well beyond the bounds of the Big Apple. Stock & Bones, LLC Beverage Director Nicole Burke has brought wines on tap to Portland’s Irving Street Kitchen. “Wine on tap is a movement that just makes sense. It keeps wine by the glass fresh and significantly reduces packaging,” she told us. “And it’s allowed us to forge close ties with the wineries.” We’ve seen—and sipped—tap wine further up the East Coast, at Trade, in Boston, where two wines (and counting) are currently pouring directly from Gotham’s wine sacks. Also in Beantown is Area Four, a locavore restaurant with “Boston’s first sustainable wine program” (all wines are on tap, available by the glass, half-liter, and liter sizes). Meanwhile the West Coast continues to ride the keg train, with restaurants like The Father’s Office and Lukson making wine-on-tap its MO. And of course back in New York, the trend persists with the recently opened Vinatta Project (sister of Mulberry Project), serving wines on tap to the now tap-savvy New York audience.