Business & Tech

Olivino's Wine Bar Presents Weekly Tastings

Local wine shop offers a wide selection of international wines

Olivino’s Wine Bar, co-owned by Tony Walker and Katrine Pollari, has been hosting free weekly tastings every week since the store opened three and a half years ago.

The small event is held every Friday, Saturday and Sunday, from 5:00 pm, until the wine available for tasting is gone.

This past Friday, the wine featured for the occasion was from the Kozelmann Estate Winery of Canada: A Niagra Peninsula Pinot Blanc from 2008. But the usual selection available for sampling is varied.

Interested in local real estate?Subscribe to Patch's new newsletter to be the first to know about open houses, new listings and more.

“We use what we have enough of, and we mix it up,” says store clerk Kyle Warren. “It’s not the same ones every weekend.”

Warren says that owner Tony Walker sometimes comes by the tastings on Saturday. He was not at the tasting this past Saturday, but Warren and his co-worker Deborah were friendly and talkative with the customers, making suggestions and offering a tasting of the wines on display.

Interested in local real estate?Subscribe to Patch's new newsletter to be the first to know about open houses, new listings and more.

The store has a welcoming atmosphere, with casual music in the background, supplied by Youtube searches from the co-workers.

The store also organizes bigger tastings centered around the holidays, like Thanksgiving and Christmas. Warren says that the next one will probably be around Easter.

Patrons can learn about these tastings by dropping by the store and signing up for the email list. The list also sends out reminders about ten-off Tuesdays, in which patrons receive 10 percent off, if they purchase two bottles of wine or more on Tuesdays, an offer which is only available at the Marcus Garvey Boulevard location in Bed-Stuy.

The wine bar gets its name from owner Katrine Pollari’s pug, Olive, who is featured on the store’s promotional postcards at the register. Pollari manages the other location in Clinton Hill on Fulton Street, which is the original store and that has a sit-down wine bar attached next door.

The store has an international selection, with wines from France, Germany, Italy and Spain, as well as some sakes from Japan. “We basically have something from any country that produces wine,” says Warren.


Get more local news delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for free Patch newsletters and alerts.

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here