Astor Wine & Spirits

(Originally posted on 421/07)

This past weekend, I stopped by at Astor Wine & Spirits, located at 399 Lafayette St at East 4th St, New York City. They have recently moved to a new and larger location. This was my first visit to Astor. I had seen their website and was intrigued. First, they had a huge sake selection. Second, they had in stock Sean Thackrey's Pleaides XV, a rare wine I have been seeking for quite a while.

I was very happy that I stopped there. This is an exceptional wine store. It is quite large and spacious. They have lots of wine, from all over the world. One of the wines I picked up was a Cabernet blend from Lebanon. They have a huge sake selection, probably the biggest selection I have seen outside of True Sake in san Francisco. Most of the sakes were kept cool in a refrigerated area. There was another cool room for wines as well. I found plenty of wines that I had not seen before elsewhere. Plus, I found some wines I had been eagerly hunting. I bought six bottles of the Pleaides XV, as well as a bottle of Sean Thackrey's Petite Sirah. Of course, I bought several bottles of sake, including some limited namazakes. Prices are average though they had a good number of wines on sale. Plus, you get 10% off on a mixed case.

The staff were helpful and the store was clean. I will definitely return here when I go back to NYC and highly recommend this store to anyone visiting the city.

While unpacking my wine, I realized that the store had inserted a couple sheets into the box, a "Buyer's Guide." This guide discusses all of the wines I purchased, telling me a bit about all of them, such as tasting notes, history, etc. This is the type of info you might see on the info tags attached to some wines. I think this is a nice extra.