St. Vincent Wine might have all the components you’d expect from a bona fide wine bar, but don’t confuse the charcuterie plates, extensive wine list uncorked by the bottle, and 4,000-foot back patio for pretension.

What longtime friends and bartenders Peyton Sherwood and Frederick Uku are going for at their first bar, restaurant, and wine store, is, in Uku’s words, “no frills, no fuss, no fancy.” St. Vincent, which opened in Park View in November in the building that formerly housed Sundavich and Union Drinkery, channels their favorite parts of New Orleans legend Bacchanal Fine Wine & Spirits. The D.C. replica stays close to the original: a wine store with online ordering, a massive outdoor garden patio, grab-and-go wine and cheese, and space for live music.

“Every single bartender that goes to Bacchanal goes, ‘Why don’t we have this in [insert your own city]?” says Uku. “It blew our minds.”

Sherwood and Uku bring decades of combined experience in D.C.’s bar and nightlife scene. Sherwood is a co-owner of Midlands Beer Garden and Uku, who was last a bartender at the Red Hen, built up his wine education from places like Ripple and Veritas Wine Bar, one of the first wine bars in D.C. They met back in 2006 when they opened bars next door to each other on U Street — Sherwood was at Solly’s and Uku at Vinoteca. By the time they went to New Orleans in 2018 on a trip for Uku’s birthday, the wheels began turning for how to bring a slice of the Big Easy back as their own neighborhood bar.

Uku is the wine expert, says Sherwood, who relies on him for advice on what to drink. The “no frills” philosophy lets St. Vincent keep bottle costs more accessible, but also shows off the culmination of Uku’s years working in wine. Uku is quick to stress that he isn’t a sommelier, but created what he calls a “roadmap of everything I’ve learned” with lots of room for flexibility and change.

“Some people here have thought that because they’re sitting on plush Chesterfield leather couches that a person with a pin on their chest and a pink tie is going to show up,” Uku says. “We’re not going to send a table-side sommelier, but if it’s a question of what you feel like drinking that day, that we can help you with.”

Sherwood and Uku spent more than a year transforming 11,000 feet of property inside and out. They stripped five dumpsters of plaster off the walls to expose the original brick and wood bones. They built out a second-floor deck and a stage in the upstairs front room, kept Union Drinkery’s back bar, refurbished the ceilings and floors with barnwood from Richmond, and added gold-tinged burgundy wallpaper, bookshelves, low lamps, and worn leather seating for a sophisticated speakeasy feel. Out back on the patio, they planted cherry trees, dotted low-top tables and heat lamps over gravel stones, and plan to build an outdoor stage next year for acoustic sets.

For now, the focus is on socially distant patio seating and sparse indoor dining upstairs. Uku recommends reservations through Resy, noting that the patio has been at capacity the last two weekends because “people are determined to squeeze what little bit of joy they can out of 2020.” (Preorder pick-ups from noon to 8 p.m. and walk-in to-go orders from the wine store are always 25 percent off.)

Outside, St. Vincent has blankets for purchase with their raven logo and are keeping occupancy low and windows open for a few indoor tables. Some elements will come later, including the live music, which the owners envisioned hosting every night, the upstairs cocktail bar, wine offered by the glass, and a full kitchen menu of specials like pasta and braised pesto lamb from chef Sam Molavi, formerly of St. Anselm and Compass Rose. The bar opened shortly before D.C. put new regulations in place that affect restaurant hours in the wake of rising COVID-19 case numbers.

Like many other restaurants, the pandemic pushed back their planned opening. “We were supposed to open in the spring, then summer, then fall,” says Sherwood. “We have a bunch of nice trees in the back and I was staring at them all red and yellow and orange one afternoon like, ‘They’re missing it!’ But that’s the fun thing about projects like this. Just because you open the doors doesn’t mean you’re done.”

At this point, those who come in person can browse two expansive rooms of wine and fridges of cheese, homemade pickles, and jams available a la carte. Staff give out table numbers upon check out and will bring selected bottles, dinnerware, and plated charcuterie and toasted breads to the table. An e-commerce site is set up so people can order from phones once seated.

The wine collection ($30-$150) spans all varieties from traditional areas, including France and Spain and the United States, as well as a “miscellaneous” section of bottles from Portugal, the Canary Islands, Germany, Morocco, and Austria. Uku highlights the magnums (1.5 liter bottles) and French-style Cabernet Sauvignon called Aslina from Ntsiki Biyela, who is the first Black woman winemaker from South Africa. Cider, mead, and beer are also in the cases.

The bar is named for St. Vincent of Saragossa, the patron saint of winemakers.

“[Wine] has been the opiate of the masses for a millennia,” says Uku. “It was never meant to be this esoteric, ostentatious thing. At its core, it is an agricultural product that is grown and produced to bring people together, to enjoy with food and celebration. We’re just going to try and bring that back.”

St. Vincent Wine is located at 3212 Georgia Ave. NW.