By Matthew DeBord

New York has never lacked for wine stores. But while merchants might once have felt compelled to offer diversity, several of the city's newest shops zero in on specific countries or regions. These days in New York, there's no retailing quite like niche retailing.

Vintage New York
482 Broome St.
Telephone (212) 226-9463
Fax (212) 226-8812
Web site www.vintagenewyork.com
Specialty New York state
Stock, price range 12,000, $8-$37

Vintage New York is an act of regional patriotism in a city not known for its love of the local vineyards. Every wine in the store was made in New York state.

Besides stocking 170 wines, the store also carries artisanal foods. But the real action is at the tasting bar, where $5 buys you five sips from an assortment of bottles. Combined with a sun-drenched farmhouse aesthetic, this has the effect of transporting visitors to the wine country.

Owners Susan Wine and Robert A. Ransom also own the Rivendell Winery in the Hudson Valley, which means the store can be open on Sunday (although wine stores must close on Sunday, New York's Farm Wineries law permits vineyard owners to sell wine on that day).

"We wanted to create a wine-discovery zone," says Ransom. Adds Wine, "No one else was going to do it." New Yorkers will be thankful someone did once they swirl a glass of Macari Bergen Road North Fork of Long Island 1997 (88, $36) or a Standing Stone Riesling Finger Lakes Dry 1998 (85, $11).