Wine Library Lets Wine Lovers Sample the Stacks

Wine aficionados may have found their paradise in an unlikely place: a library.

But the wine library at Roanoke Vineyards is no ordinary collection. The shelves are packed with books, of course, but the card catalogue won't lead you to them. In fact, there are no cards at all. The catalogue is filled with wine bottles.

The library, which debuted in May and is open each weekend, lets customers buy from the catalogue and sit at one of the tables or leather chairs and enjoy their bottle, said Roanoke Vineyards Media and Creative Director Scott Sandell. In addition to holding 75 different bottles of wine, the library also holds events, such as a jazz performance by a Roanoke employee this Sunday afternoon.

The library has the wine archives of Roanoke, Grapes of Roth, and the Wölffer Estate dating back to the 1994 vintage, Scott said. Wines range in price from the $19 Roanoke De Rosa Rosé to the $100 bottle of Wölffer Christian's Cuvée, and even include wines never sold to the public.

"You can get four or five glasses in front of you and try the same wine from different years," Sandell said. "You can't do that anywhere else."

Nestled in the back of the vineyard's main building, the room was originally an art gallery, but Scott said the space was converted to the wine library to bring Roanoke back to their focus on wine.

"We had this pile of wine in our secure wine bunker back here, and so we thought, 'Well we call that our library, but it doesn't look like a library,'" Scott said. "This does."

Sandell said visiting wine-lovers can enjoy a relaxing day, even in a poor economy.

"It's the whole 'staycation' idea," he said. "I can't go to Bermuda but I can buy a nice bottle of wine."