Cava Wine Bar

I stopped by Cava on the Upper West Side earlier this week. It’s located at 185 W 80^th St and it is a fantastic place! It’s pretty spacious for a wine bar and it has a great jazz café atmosphere.

There were lots of choices on their wine list and the majority of the wines were from France, Italy, Spain, or the US. Glasses of wine were between $10 and $15 and bottles weren’t too expensive with prices in the $34 to $180 range. Since it was a nice day out and I was sitting in one of the bay windows at the front of the bar, I decided to order a glass of white wine and chose the Albarino from Spain. I didn’t catch the year or producer (FAIL) because the menu was snatched away from me pretty quickly. However, I can’t think of an Albarino that I’ve had that wasn’t delicious. This grape is the predominant white wine grape in the Rias Baixas region of Spain and is known for being very lively and refreshing. This particular one had a very citrus-y aroma of grapefruit and lemon. It also had a zesty lemon flavor, a white pepper finish, and a great acidity that gave it that refreshing quality. The pour was very large and the glasses left plenty of room for swirling.

Latin music, R&B, and jazz were playing, giving the bar a soulful atmosphere. The walls were covered with wooden wine racks and bright oil paintings of people playing jazz instruments. The ceiling had some interest too…it was made of glossy black tiles framed by dark wood. I’ll post a picture of it, but it was a neat detail. I was seated at one of the bay windows, facing out to look at a quiet 80^th st. With a cool glass of wine in my hand and the soulful music playing, I was in my element. All that was missing was a good book! This is a great place to come and unwind. It would be perfect for a date too. You can tell that the seating makes a deliberate intimate setting because the large space was filled with only café tables for two. With this seating, the dim lighting, and the music it’s almost as if Cava is going *wink wink, nudge nudge*

I was surprised that Cava wasn’t busier than it was at the time. It’s just off of Amsterdam Ave, which is filled with restaurants and a wine bar like this would be a good place to have pre-dinner drinks. While I was there, it was just a couple groups of girlfriends, a couple, and myself. However, people that walked by Cava must have been drawn by the sweet sounds drifting out of the bar because they would stop to look at the menu outside, and walk in to get a table. So, it did start picking up around 7.

This place has a good staff on board; the waitress would stop by the tables often enough to make sure you were happy, but not too often to be annoying. Rumor has it that if you’re sitting at the bar and your glass happens to approach empty, the bartender will add a couple splashes to make sure you keep having a good time. I can’t vouch for this, but cross your fingers if you’re sitting at the bar when you’re at Cava!

I like Cava. It’s casual, it’s soulful, and they have a good wine list to boot. I think it’s a great wine bar, especially on the warmer days :) I give this place a rating of 4 out of 5 glasses.

The nearly empty interior of Cava

Looking out onto 80th St with my glass of Albarino

a soulful jazz cafe!

Ten Degrees

On Friday I went to Ten Degrees, which is located at 121 St Marks Pl in the East Village. The last time I was here, the only thing I knew about wine was that I liked Cabernet Sauvignon. Much has changed since my college days and I was curious to see how this place added up to the other wine bars I’ve been to.

The interior is on the small side, but the tables are laid out well and there is also a swanky looking private room for parties. Most tables only seat two people, although there are several long wooden tables in the back section of the bar. The worn wooden tables, brick walls, cement floor, and wooden shelving stocked with bottles of wine around the front section of the bar give Ten Degrees a cottage like feel. However, it is crowded and loud, which detracts from the potentially cozy atmosphere.

Wines are between $9 and $15 and all of the wines by the glass are available by the bottle as well, starting at $32 and priced up to $55. There is a separate bottle list for fine wines, which is arranged by price; $55 to $160. Normally bottles are listed by country, but there were less than 10 bottles to choose from, so this method of organizing the menu makes sense. Each of the wines, both by the glass and bottle, had aroma and tasting notes with very thorough descriptions. The wines seemed very expensive for what they were. The wines that were just over $100 seemed to be marked up quite a bit for what they were. I did a little research and while I don’t know the wholsesale prices on these wines, some of them were triple the retail price. Yikes! Many of the lower priced glasses were marked up too much as well. For example, the least expensive wine was the Astica Cabernet Sauvignon, which retails for $4.99 and is $9 for a glass here. I’m disappointed to say the least.

For old times sake, I decided to order a Cabernet, and unfortunately the only one that sounded good happened to be the most expensive. I ordered the 2007 Justin Cabernet Sauvignon from the Paso Robles region of California. The glasses could be larger, as I wasn’t able to swirl my wine enough to get a good whiff of it. From what I was able to smell, it had a sweet cherry aroma. Its flavor was very rich with notes of leather, cedar, and a hint of vanilla. Flavors of vanilla and cedar in a red wine are good indicators of a wine being aged in oak barrels. This was a very tasty and crowd pleasing Cabernet.

The crowd at Ten Degrees isn’t what I usually see at a wine bar. It was filled with the happy hour crowd, most of which were just getting mixed drinks instead of wine. It was loud and I found myself having to shout over the music, which seemed to be turned up as the noise of the crowd increased. Not very relaxing. Once happy hour approached its close the crowd cleared out a bit though.

I liked Ten Degrees, but there are a few areas that didn't meet my expectations. The wine selection could be larger. While a simple menu keeps things easy, I wish there were a couple more pages of options for the bottles. It’s not as relaxing as I hoped it would be, but the space is so dang rustic and pretty. I wish the atmosphere matched. It is a fun place if you're not looking to kick back, but if you come here on a weeknight it will probably be much more calm and perhaps draw more of a wine bar crowd. I give Ten Degrees a rating of 3.6 out of 5 glasses.

Cool layout of the bar

The seating area in the back of the bar

My glass of Cabernet

Shelves and shelves of wine!