Wine Stores & Wine Friendly Resturants around Bethesda, MD

Don;t have any suggestions for you - sorry - but your post reminded me of my own travels this very week. Was in Detroit area earlier in the week and had a business dinner planned. we chose "Mac's" in Saline because of the wine list (you can view it online at

- and becasue they have a 1/2 off special on Tuesday nights. If anyone is ever in the area, ESPECIALLY ona Tuesday night - highly recommended.

Then was near Baltimore on Wednesday night - and also had a business dinner need; but absolultely couldn't find a similar schtick; good restaurant with a great wine list. Settled for cheap beer and great crabcakes instead!

Bethesda now has a few good restaurants with decent wine lists. Jaleo is a very decent tapas place with a fairly good selection of (mostly Spanish) wines. Persimmon is a seafood place, again with decent wine list. Grapeseed is a wine bar, though their treatment of wines isn't ideal. Dunno about retailers in Bethesda, but if you're there for so long, get out to MacArthur or Calvert-Woodley: at the very least you might have an RM Parker sighting.

HTH Mark Lipton

Hello, Paul! You wrote on Fri, 13 Oct 2006 20:57:07 GMT:

PP> I'm working in Bethesda, MD over the next several months PP> and looking for a decent wine store and wine friendly PP> resturants. Any and all suggestions would be appreciated. PP> Cheers PP> P. Parker

I'm not sure about wine-friendly restaurants but Bethesda is not tremendous for wine stores, tho' they exist but wholesale purchases by stores have to go thro' the Montgomery County Liquor Authority. This quaint relic of prohibition means that there are State Liquor stores too, which are the only places you can buy hard liquor. IMHO, they are quite good on price and on selection of recent vintages but I don't regard the staff as particularly knowledgeable (maybe I am not either!) Some of the stores, particularly those in Potomac, have some quite high priced wines.

There are a few good liquor stores just over the border in DC and there are supposed to be restrictions on purchase there by Maryland residents, tho' I've never let that bother me! It's a long time since I heard of anyone being run in. Chevy Chase Liquors on Connecticut Ave used to be quite good tho' it's a while since was last there. Calvert-Woodley is a fairly large store, again on Connecticut and close to the Van Ness Metro station. The Total wine stores in Northern Virginia are very large and have decent prices but are some miles away.

James Silverton Potomac, Maryland

E-mail, with obvious alterations: not.jim.silverton.at.comcast.not

Andy Bassin's McArthur Beverages is down McArthur Blvd (about five blocks north of the reservoir). Has some decent stocks and is in the middle of a sale right now. I called up to order two cases of Mollydooker Boxer and they told me it was going on sale Saturday and gave me the sale price.

Montgomery county md has unique and very undity wine laws. forget them.

DC also has unique liquor laws. It is one of the few places in the US that not only does not have the three tier system, it allows an importer to sell wine retail(properly lisenced). they are also allowed to bring wines directly from other states(ca,or, wa) and sell without going through a distributor.

at the DC border is Circle & Pauls

further in, both calvert woodly and macarthur have decent selection and have direct imports. schneiders will have a number of direct imports also, and usually some ca wines that cannot be found elsewhere.

i don't eat in that part of wash, so have no feeling for wine friendly restaurants.

however, you should realize the standard price on restaurant wine is

3x wholesale.

If you are near the red line, go to Dino's on ct ave in dc. see dino-dc.com. they do not do the 3x, and they have a special of any wine over $50 is 1/3 off on certain days, which gets them to under 2x wholesale, and close to shelf price. has a phenomonal collection.