Where there’s Wilmington there’s a way. The BMW Championship, Wilmington Country Club, August 18-21, 2022
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Wilmington, DE, site of this year’s BMW Championship may not be thought of as a cosmopolitan destination but that doesn’t mean it’s devoid of wine culture. There’s seemingly a store or restaurant of interest on nearly every corner. We had no trouble filling in our roster of recommendations, which is more than we can say for a lot of other cities with 70,000 or even more residents. Maybe the biggest knock is retail is a little weak over say $150 if you’re looking to splurge.
Swigg Real Wine (gotta like that name, where have we heard it before?) has a smallish, kind of funky selection that eschews trophies in favor of careful curation. Probably a good store to browse in and ask questions. It’s only the second store we’ve found nationally that lets you search by importer, and they work with some great ones.
Moore Brothers is a small chain with a preference for wineries committed to natural farming and maybe a little attitude about it. They seem to pick a smallish number of producers and double-down on them, but they also make an effort to carry a lot of lesser known grapes. A good example would be three wines from Liguria all from the same producer (Terre Bianche)
Kreston Wines might be the least exciting/adventurous of our choices but if you need a bottle of Sassicaia they have it. Good to know in a pinch.
Le Cavalier is an upscale French bistro with a nice list of mainly old-world, country wines very much in keeping with the format. Lots of fun packed into a small, well-priced list.
Bardea Food and Drink serves modern Italian-leaning cusine with a small, focused list of mainly Italian wines with some New World interpretations tossed in. The restaurant was a James Beard Award semi-finalist recently and the creativity in the wine selections no doubt contributed. Plus I’m a sucker for Antonio Gaggiano Taurasi and you just don’t see it that often.
I can’t quite understand the concept at Dorcea. It has a skimpy menu of small plates and entrees along with flat out the best wine list we came across. There are plenty of options from diverse locales for under $75, but here’s where you wine and dine when money is no object. The Napa selections are extensive and expensive. They seem to have been on the Bond mailing list for decades. While I’d like to see better representation in Bordeaux, Burgundy, and Piedmont, there’s no denying it’s the place to be for the well-heeled cab-lover. The food won’t even be a rounding error. Waiter, I’ll have the char-grilled meatloaf ($17) with a bottle of Bond Melbury ’04 ($495)
No see-ums. Ward’s Fine Wines and Girard’s make lofty pronouncements about how great they are but their sites are little more than billboards. We found a picture of Rory McIlroy with the proprietors of the new, obscenely expensive for the market Bardea Steak (same owners as above) so we’re giving them the benefit of the doubt on the wine front.
