Ordinaire Wine Shop & Wine Bar
They have poured low-intervention wine on Grand Avenue since 2013, out of the small narrow-lipped glasses every other natural wine bar copied.
Why go
This is where a lot of Bay Area drinkers first met the European winemakers behind the category, and the Chronicle is direct about the standing: One could argue that Ordinaire is the essential Bay Area natural wine bar: not the first, not the biggest, but the most influential.
1 It has been pouring since 2013, and the glassware is the tell, because this was one of the first places to pour into tiny, narrow-lipped glasses
that are now standard everywhere.1 The shop writes its own specification and holds to it: wines made by real humans, with grapes that are farmed organically, and then fermented naturally in the cellar with no additives.
2 It works as a bar and as a bottle shop at the same address.
Order this / avoid
- Order: by the glass and ask what came open today. Nobody publishes a bottle list here, so no source on the record names a producer for me to point you at.
- Avoid: expecting polish. The Chronicle's own words are
as rustic and charming as ever.
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What locals & experts say
- San Francisco Chronicle, 25 best places to drink natural wine in the Bay Area:
One could argue that Ordinaire is the essential Bay Area natural wine bar: not the first, not the biggest, but the most influential.
The list rows are unsigned.1 - San Francisco Chronicle, on what happens there: it is
still a place where you're liable to experience a natural wine revelation.
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Good to know
- Format: shop and bar in one room, so a bottle can go home with you.2
- What else runs here: pop-ups, bistro nights and tastings, announced on the shop's own Substack.2
Verdict
should-visit — The Chronicle put this room on its 25 best natural wine list and made an influence claim you can test against the rest of the category, which is stronger evidence than a compliment would be. The shop also publishes a written specification for what it will stock, so it can be held to something. What is missing is granular: nobody signed the Chronicle write-up, and nothing I read names one producer or one bottle, so I cannot tell you what to drink when you sit down.