Tastingsof Charlottesville
Restaurant · Wine Bar · Wine Shop · one roof since 1990
The first place on the East Coast to put all three under one roof. Every bottle passes Bill Curtis’s palate before it reaches the shelf, and any of them can be poured with dinner for five dollars over the shop price.
502 E Market St · Lunch Tue–Sat 11:30–2:30 · Dinner Thu–Sat 6–9
The Restaurant
Lunch & Dinner
Oak-grilled, from-scratch cooking built as a frame for wine. Real lobster, real butter, real cream. Period.
Enter →
The Wine Shop
Retail, Tue–Sat
Thousands of bottles, chosen one at a time by a leading authority on Virginia wine and Burgundy.
Enter →
The Wine Bar
Pouring Thu–Sat
A $50 bottle in the store is a $55 bottle at the table. That arithmetic has held since 1990.
Enter →
“We have no wine list. Ask.”
— Bill Curtis, since 1990. Here is how asking works.
The Wine List
There isn’t one. There are three questions.
as asked at 502 E Market St since 1990
Circle one answer per line, the way Bill would ask you at the rack.
“Or he could sit at the bar in Tastings, Charlottesville’s remarkable wine shop/restaurant/tasting room, and swap stories with Bill Curtis, the region’s leading raconteur and purveyor of historic wines.”
“A wine lover's nirvana. Not to say that novices wouldn't be comfortable at Tastings. In fact, it's probably the best place to go when you don't know a whole lot.”
“William C. Curtis... is a leading authority on Virginia wines.”
“This dude knows his wine.”
“May it live ten thousand years.” — a TripAdvisor regular, 2019
The ledger
It started with two bottles at a Safeway in 1972.
One was Blue Nun. The other, ten cents cheaper, was a Kallstadter Saumagen Riesling Spätlese, and it was better by a mile. The gap between price and truth set the course for everything since.
- 1968
- Arrives from upstate New York for graduate history at UVA. Never leaves.
- 1976
- Opens Court Square Tavern; 127 imported beers by the next year.
- 1981
- Founds the Wine Club of Charlottesville. It meets for four decades.
- 1990
- Opens Tastings: the East Coast's first restaurant, wine bar and wine shop in one.
- Today
- Bill and Deb run it themselves. Same rule: nothing on a shelf Bill hasn't tasted first.
The weekly dinner · Tuesdays at seven
- Alps to Etna: mountain-grown ItalyJuly 21
- Sancerre & Pouilly-Fumé, fried oysters, Texas quailJuly 14
- Lobsters & Champagne: a tribute to the FrenchJuly 1
- Eight Northern Rhônes, seafood scampi, Texas elkJune 21
Hear about the next one
The weekly newsletter announces the flights and the dinner lineups first, and it is, by long reputation, as entertaining as it is informative.
Or just call. 434-293-3663. Someone who knows will answer.
Finding the door
Under the Market Street garage, on purpose.
You enter by the side door and make your way through stacks of thousands of bottles of wine. A regular called it a gem on the edge of the parking garage; the least romantic address downtown has hidden its most romantic idea for thirty-five years.
