The first thing that strikes you upon entering District Winery, a new urban winemaking venture located at 385 Water St. SE in the Navy Yard, is the light. Ensconced completely in glass, the massive 17,000 square foot space is bright and welcoming, offering three stories of event space flanked by spectacular (and unobstructed) waterfront views.
The second thing you notice is the wine. Hundreds upon hundreds of bottles of “District Winery”-emblazoned pinot noirs, dry rosés, and unoaked chardonnays flank the establishment’s lobby.
For its official opening come August 30, District Winery will have some 15 different varieties of wine available for sipping in their tasting room, enjoying with dinner at their restaurant, downing at a wedding in an upstairs events space, or savoring in the comfort of your own home.
Most of the wine currently in stock was made up north at Brooklyn Winery, the original urban winemaking venture from District Winery founders John Stires and Brian Leventhal. But the first three-and-a-half ton batch of pinot noir grapes is expected to arrive from the West Coast on Monday, meaning the team will start creating a whole fleet of new wines made entirely within D.C. proper. Given the amount of time necessary to make good wine, these bottles should start hitting District glasses in the next one to three years. The products of Brooklyn Winery will continue to fill in in the meantime.
The wonderful thing about District Winery’s concept is that their winemaking is not limited to one geographic area. Grapes are shipped in from the Finger Lakes of New York, Washington State’s Columbia Gorge, and Sonoma, California, among others. Through their relationships with farmers throughout the country, the team at District Winery is able to make a wider variety of wine than most traditional winemakers.
“The difficulty of urban winemaking, however, is logistics,” says Leventhal.
These grapes have to be shipped cross country without being crushed and immediately processed upon arrival, meaning some long days for the establishment’s two person winemaking team.
To Leventhal and Stires, the effort is worth it. The pair first met over ten years ago at a tech company in New York, and, despite having no previous professional experience in wine, left their jobs in 2009 to start Brooklyn Winery. Initially intended to be a make-your-own wine place, the team was quickly flooded with requests to use their space for events, pushing Leventhal and Stires to completely revamp the business model.
At the new District Winery, events were always in mind even as the building was being built. Working closely with Forest City, the developer behind The Yards complex, architecture firm Gensler, and designer HapstakDemetriou+, Leventhal and Stires built a space made for picture-perfect functions. It’s complete with a wrap-around terrace, a staging area, and plenty of glass windows for tipsily peering into the winemaking facilities below.
If hosting numerous weddings wasn’t enough, District Winery is also home to Ana, a new restaurant catering to the growing neighborhood crowds of Southeast D.C. Helmed by formerly New York-based Chef Michael Gordon and D.C. restaurant vet Benjamin Lambert, the menu runs the gamut in terms of flavors, techniques, and influences.
“Ben and I just met and started bouncing ideas off each other,” says Gordon, explaining how the menu grew.
From one hundred initial ideas, the pair whittled it down to a selection that includes flavorful crab beignets, pastrami spiced monkfish, and a plum tart with red wine meringues and cheddar crisps, Chef Lambert’s interpretation of a mini wine and cheese bar. Wines by the glass here range between $9 and $17. Ana will begin with dinner next Wednesday, and the team hopes to start brunch service sometime in the near future as well. There’s also a bar bite menu for lighter meals.
As it is a winemaking facility at its core, District Winery also offers tours, which include a breakdown of the winemaking process followed by a tasting of a selection of the establishment’s wines. Available on a first come, first serve basis, tours will start at 1 p.m., 2:30 p.m., and 4 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays starting September 9. These will the $25 each and bottles of wine are also available to purchase afterwards and range in price from around $20 to $40. A la carte tasting flights run $10, $12, and $15.
District Winery is located at 385 Water St. SE. Tasting bar hours are Monday through Thursday from 1 p.m. to 9 p.m., Friday from 12 p.m. to 11 p.m., Saturday from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m., and Sunday 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Ana restaurant is open Monday through Thursday from 5 p.m. to 10 p.m. and Saturday and Sunday from 5 p.m. to 11 p.m.
