8 new and expanded wine bars around the Bay

It’s no secret that the wine industry is struggling right now. Last year, U.S. wine sales dropped below 300 million cases for the first time in 20 years, the last of five years in a row of declining volume sales. The industry is facing what’s been described as one of the most severe and prolonged downturns in decades, and the impacts continue to ripple throughout the wine sector and beyond.

So why, then, does the wine bar scene appear to be booming in the Bay Area?

“You have a myriad of issues going on in the alcohol industry as a whole, and they’re all coming to a head. I think as bad as it is right now, we still haven’t hit bottom,” says Bryan Brick, managing partner of Good Times Oakland, a wine bar that opened last year. “People’s mentality about alcohol has completely changed. … It makes for a very difficult climate to do business in.”

But wine businesses are adapting in different ways. Some bottle shops are adding tasting rooms. Some wine bars are building out active event calendars to expand the array of experiences they offer. And others are making wines grown around the world — or even up windy country roads in the Santa Cruz Mountains — more accessible by bringing them closer to local neighborhoods.

“The way I think about it, there isn’t really a clear boundary between our ‘normal’ retail operations, our by-the-glass offerings and our events. They’re all different aspects of the same goal: giving our customers a more experiential connection to wine and beer,” says Daniel Gorback, co-owner of Wine Thieves in Lafayette. “What we want Wine Thieves to offer is something more personal: a place where people can discover wine and beer, learn as much or as little as they want and spend time with other people in a fun, unintimidating environment.”

“People talk about wanting third spaces — a nice place to go that’s affordable and they can have a glass of wine or a beer or whatever,” Brick says. “But what people don’t realize is, if you want those places, you have to go and support them, and you have to support them regularly.”

Here are eight new wine bars around the Bay Area, each a third space worthy of your support in its own way.

Moods Wine Bar & Bistro, Sunnyvale

It’s Tuesday evening, and you’re with a few pals from the office. Or Saturday date night. What are you in the mood for? A glass of wine and an appetizer? Or varietals to match an Afghani feast?

At their aptly named wine bar, Mahmood and KC Saljooqi are in the business of setting the mood. The couple relocated to Sunnyvale several months ago from Palo Alto, where they operated Moods for seven years.

Here, across from the historic Murphy Avenue restaurant row, they’ve created a welcoming oasis with twinkling lights, gold wine glasses turned into votives, artwork by Mahmood and live music on Tuesdays and Sundays. There’s banquette, high-top and bar seating inside and patio tables for alfresco sipping.

The couple offers a curated selection of a dozen reds and a dozen whites or sparkling wines, along with cocktails made with Japanese shochu. California wines dominate the list, but there are a few notable French, Spanish, Italian and New Zealand selections.

Moods offers happy hour discounts every evening, with $2 off glasses of wine and $10 off bottles.

The pour: We asked KC which wine she’d recommend with the $25 appetizer trio of Chicken Khorma, Banjan (eggplant) and Aushak (dumplings topped with a beef sauce), and she responded by asking us about our likes. Working with our preference for a medium-bodied red, maybe something a little jammy, she suggested either the 2021 Red Rhône Cuvée ($18) from Sarah’s Vineyard in the Santa Cruz Mountains or a “peppery” 2019 garnacha ($15) from Rioja, Spain, and gave us tastes of both. We opted for the local Rhône-style blend, which enhanced the lighter food notes and held up to the bold flavors.

Details: Open 4-10 p.m. Tuesdays-Saturdays, until 9 p.m. Sundays, 111 W. Evelyn Ave., Sunnyvale, with ample free parking; moodswinebar.com.

Doctorbird, Pittsburg

This former industrial town at the mouth of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta has never been known as a culinary hot spot. But Bay Area food and wine veterans Zane and Danielle Fiala saw an opportunity in its historic downtown after they moved there in search of affordable housing.

Zane, a certified master sommelier, and Danielle, an estate chef at Gloria Ferrer Wines in Sonoma, opened Doctorbird Market in Old Town in 2023 as a “corner store” – a bright and airy retail shop selling bottles of fine wine, artisanal cheese, gourmet sauces and other “fancy” food items favored by locals who similarly enjoy “good food and cooking at home.” Last year, they received a license to incorporate a wine lounge into their storefront, allowing them to serve full glasses or flights of wine from some of their favorite boutique producers in California and internationally.

Given Pittsburg’s working-class roots, the Fialas knew their wine bar couldn’t be fussy or intimidating. The vibe at Doctorbird, therefore, is “community living room,” serving a town where residents like to say they know their neighbors.

Customers are invited to hang out, maybe join in a trivia night, special tasting party or just have fun, sipping wine or craft beer while playing one of the classic board games stacked up on shelves around the room. Doctorbird doesn’t have a kitchen for serving food, but customers can grab anything in the store to munch on, and it will be added to their bill.

“Wine has always been a thing that brings people together,” Zane said. “It’s what’s on the table, which is where families and communities come together to have a shared experience, you know, breaking bread.”

A big-screen TV at one end of the space can also transform Doctorbird into a sports bar, where NFL, NBA or MLB fans can get a bit of casual wine education while cheering on their teams.

As a 49ers pre-season game played on the screen one Thursday evening in August, Zane poured a taste of NoneSuch Wines 2023 Chardonnay ($16) and almost poetically described the geographical origins shaping its flavors: A wind-swept vineyard at 2,200 feet in the Gabilan Mountain Range overlooking the Salinas Valley, producing a white wine that he said was more crisp than buttery.

The pour: In addition to the NoneSuch Chardonnay, Doctorbird’s “Cali Love” flight ($22) also included a taste of a 2022 Malbec from Kareen Wine ($12 per glass/$25 per bottle). This rich, well-balanced red comes from a small Amador County-based winery that sources its grapes from Lodi and the Sierra foothills and takes its name from the Nemet family’s ancestral home in Armenia. “All their labels very much lean into their Armenian heritage, which is very beautiful,” Zane said.

Details: Doctorbird is open noon-7 p.m. Wednesdays and Sundays, noon-8 p.m. Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays, 90 E. 40th St., Pittsburg; doctorbirdmarket.com.

The Rendezvous, Palo Alto

Just blocks from Palo Alto’s California Avenue, this French-Italian wine bar opened in early June as the collaboration between two longtime restaurant-owning friends: Maxime Roucoule, from France, and Giuseppe Carrubba, from Italy. Their shop also specializes in old Californian wines, from the 1980s to 2000s, according to Roucoule.

Here, wine flights are a popular menu choice among customers so far, according to Roucoule. Flights range from $25 to $40 and include curated selections of Californian wines, bubbles, rosés, whites, Sancerres, Bordeauxs, pinot noirs and dessert wines.

“This is a good way to learn about the wine and figure out what they like,” he says.

Choose to sit inside for a cozy yet elegant vibe with red curtains and wood accents, or opt outside to take in the practically perfect Palo Alto weather in an enclosed, spacious patio. And fun fact: Just because dishes like five-cheese flatbread and croque monsieur are listed on the “a partager” part of the menu doesn’t mean you have to share.

The pour: The ($19/glass) is made with organic Merlot grapes from vines that are an average of 32 years old, tucked at the foot of the slopes of Saint-Émilion in France’s Bordeaux region. The wine yields aromas of cherry, raspberry, blackberry and “forest floor” according to the winery’s website.

Details: Open 9 a.m.-9 p.m. weekdays and 10 a.m.-10 p.m. Saturdays, 195 Page Mill Rd, Palo Alto; instagram.com/rendezvous.paloalto.

Wine Thieves, Lafayette

This wine shop is so cherished that when it changed ownership this spring, after nearly three decades, the town came out to throw a ribbon-cutting ceremony.

New owners Daniel and Gennie Gorback have expanded the store’s social programming to make your visit a true blast. They now have a “Saturday Patio Pours and Tunes” event that pairs wine with live music, ranging from intimate acoustic sets to jam bands to match your jammy reds. Also on Saturdays, they offer a different flight of four wines for $15 curated around a common theme – Sicilian varietals, for example, or chilled wines for summer weather.

A major attraction of Wine Thieves is enjoying Lafayette’s outdoors, which is nearly always verdant and sunny. There’s a front porch with tables for sippin’ that’s as good as any Southern Gothic mansion. And each week’s “Thirsty Thursdays” draws crowds to its back patio, where revelers party with vino and beer and tasty bites from food trucks.

The pour: There’s seemingly a bottle for every customer’s needs here, down to a backroom fridge with specialty beers. For on-site enjoyment, the shop pours glasses of a half-dozen-or-so wines, from chilled Prosecco and Russian River chardonnay to California pinot noir and French Côtes du Rhône ($11). A few local beers are also on tap, including the seasonal, sought-after Pliny the Elder ($8-$9). Light snacks include dried Central Valley honey pluots and San Joaquin Valley walnut halves.

Can’t pick a bottle? The staff is eager to share their knowledge in a charming, unpretentious way.

“It doesn’t matter to us whether someone leaves with a $50 Burgundy or an $8 Chardonnay,” Daniel Gorback says. “We want them to enjoy their time with us, discover something they like and hopefully come back to explore something else.”

Details: Open 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Mondays, 10 a.m.-7 p.m. Tuesdays-Saturdays and 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Sundays, 3401 Mount Diablo Blvd., Lafayette; winethieves.com.

Bloom and Vine, Mountain View

On a recent Friday night, the interior of Bloom and Vine was calm yet convivial amidst the bustling scene outside on Mountain View’s downtown Castro Street. Owner Rozanne Chen opened this shop in June, envisioning it as a place that would combine Asian food with a wine bar-and-tapas ambience, a different style from her other restaurant, Mian, a more fast-casual concept noodle shop in Cupertino.

Bloom and Vine specializes in pairing wines with Szechuan-style small plates, and its specialty is Peking duck. In addition to Peking duck, which has to be ordered at least a day ahead of time, the menu also features plum sauce baby pork ribs, a black truffle gratin lobster tail and seasonal dishes, like winter osmanthus flowers. Wines are on the fruitier side here, selected to blend well with spicy flavors, she says.

With so many tech companies nearby, Chen says, “I want people to slow down and focus on the food and flavor.”

The pour: To go with Szechuan-style dumplings, the bar recommended a glass of the Von Winning “Winnings” 2024 Riesling from Pfalz, Germany ($8). The wine carries a unique thread of oolong tea alongside aromas of apricots, white peaches and caramelized orange zest, according to wine.com.

Details: Open 11 a.m.-2:30 p.m. and 4-9 p.m. Tuesdays-Thursdays, 11 a.m.-9:30 p.m. Fridays-Saturdays and 11 a.m.-9 p.m. Sundays, 110 Castro St., Mountain View; bloomandvine.toast.site.

Good Times Oakland

This industrial-chic operation in Oakland’s Bushrod neighborhood didn’t set out to be a “wine bar.” “We were like, ‘What if we just made a dive bar that had nothing but really good alcohol on it?’,” managing partner Bryan Brick says.

Mission accomplished. While you can always get a $10 glass of wine and a $5 beer here – “because we remember what it’s like to be broke,” Brick says – you can also access a fascinating variety of bottles.

The wine-selection process is simple but effective. The staff ask customers (whom they frequently know on a first-name basis) what they enjoy, then try to keep that stuff in stock. Think bright whites, bone-dry Vouvray secs, trendy blouges and dark-and-rounded reds – wines that are affordable, approachable and most of all delicious.

The shop also maintains a schedule of pop-ups posted to Instagram (@goodtimesoakland). On one evening, patrons might pair their declassified Tuscan red with Korean-fried chicken sandwiches and brown-butter scallop crudo from Ricecracker Club. Another night it might be mushroom gumbo and spoonbread from Daffodil Projects, and the list goes on.

The pour: The shop’s back bar stocks around 20 wines by the glass (starting at $10) and a dozen beers and ciders on draft (starting at $5), including both a sour and a nitro tap. A recent visit turned up a 2023 “Rieslingfreak No. 33” from South Australia (tasting notes: “Don’t be afraid just because it is Riesling. This wine slaps so hard!”) and a 2020 McClean Vineyard “Simone” from Paso Robles (“This is a BIG wine. Full bore Zin from Paso with all the booze, extraction and oak you can ever want”).

The shop also has what Brick describes as “one of the deepest spritz menus in Oakland right now.” There are spritzes ($10-$16) with preserved-plum sake or quinine-flavored Cocchi Americano; savory spritzes for the fall; a mimosa that’s ready to go at all times. Non-imbibers, meanwhile, can enjoy yuzu hop water or zero-proof white wine from Germany.

Details: Open 2-10 p.m. Mondays and Thursdays and noon-10 p.m. Fridays-Sundays (closed Tuesdays-Wednesdays), 6369-6371 Telegraph Ave. Oakland; goodtimesoakland.com.

De Vine Wine & Beer, Redwood City

You’ll find no pretense – and an abundance of unique, small-batch local wines at a variety of reasonable price points – at this Redwood City wine-and-bites bar, which opened last November on Broadway, in the location of the former Redwood City Bottleshop.

On a quiet Tuesday evening between tastings and live music nights scheduled that week, owner Ingrid Campos, a former executive assistant who’s living a longtime dream of running her own wine bar, chatted about her approach to the shop. A former resident of Los Altos Hills who loves gardening, she focuses her selection on small-batch wines, especially local ones. She carries eight wines from the Santa Cruz Mountains AVA, plus a selection of Italian, French and Spanish wines, as well as local beers from Sugoi and Alpha Acid brewing companies.

“It’s amazing the wines that are produced right here,” she says.

At the bar, you’ll find clusters of bottles organized based on price per glass, providing a more interactive version of a traditional wine menu – a visitor can easily pick whichever bottle catches their eye at their preferred price point – and she’s generous with tasting pours, which come in small crystal glasses she’s collected at estate sales over the years.

Another point of pride for Campos is that it’s a destination where her customers who are women feel comfortable visiting alone.

“I wanted it to feel like a European salon extension of my living room,” she says. Campos also offers weekly tastings on Thursday evenings and regularly hosts local musical acts.

The pour: Aaron Wines’ 2025 Akana Viognier from Paso Robles ($10/glass) is made with grapes grown in a vineyard around five miles from the ocean, according to Campos. The crisp wine tastes a bit like the ocean itself, she says. “White flowers, citrus, unripe pineapple and minerals dominate the aromas, while the palate is distinctively atypical for Viognier,” the winery says of this creation, which is already sold out, with just 221 cases produced.

Details: Open 3:30-9:30 p.m. Tuesdays-Thursdays and 3:30-10 p.m. Fridays-Saturdays, 2627 Broadway, Redwood City; devinewineandbeer.com.

Mile Limit, Berkeley

Mile Limit opened in 2024 as a bottle shop, but this summer completed its kitchen, allowing it to function as a Mediterranean restaurant and vinyl-listening lounge. It is owned by business partners Sergio Monleon and Emily Sarlatte, who Berkeleyites will recognize from their other enterprises, La Marcha Tapas Bar and Ñora Spanish Catering.

“We wanted to create the kind of neighborhood wine bar we always wished we had,” Monleon says, “a place where serious wine doesn’t feel intimidating and where the food is every bit as thoughtful as what’s in the glass.”

The space is bright and vibrant, lined with bottles of all hues, and the vibe runs from chill to bustling. There’s a wine club that comes with tasting notes, pairing suggestions from the kitchen and no in-house corkage fees. The staff is more than happy to lend customers a hand when they’re choosing a wine.

“We hope Mile Limit feels like a place of discovery,” Monleon says. “Whether it’s trying an unfamiliar grape, tasting a house-made terrine or escabeche, or exploring flavors from a different part of the Mediterranean, we want guests to feel comfortable being adventurous.”

The pour: Expect to meet some wines you’ve never encountered before. Glasses of favorites (roughly $13-$18) include a 100-percent Juhfark from white Hungarian grapes and a Disko red from Santa Barbara, lively with fruit and white-pepper notes. Fans of Croatian wines will be happy to note an ever-expanding collection. There are even vintages produced in Berkeley, like Hammerling Wines’ “Summer Hum” merlot rosé.

The food menu is composed of shareable small plates highlighting California ingredients, with influences drawn from Spain, Southern France, North Africa and beyond. The kitchen makes its own terrines, pates and pickles, among other pantry staples, which shine in dishes like mussels in tomato-miso escabeche and burrata with pistachio pistou and fermented honey. Don’t miss the Friday happy hour, from 4 p.m. till sold out, featuring sparkling wines and $1.50 oysters.

Details: Open 4-9 p.m. Wednesdays-Thursdays, 4-10 p.m. Fridays-Saturdays and 4-9 p.m. Sundays, 2040 San Pablo Ave., Berkeley; milelimitberkeley.com.