We Heard It Through the Grapevine: Sixty Vines Now Open
By • July 10, 2024 0 557
By Sophia Hall
You don’t have to hear it through the grapevine, get it straight from the tap: new Foggy Bottom wine bar Sixty Vines is one of D.C.’s trendiest places for happy hour and brunch deliciousness. Bringing wine country to the District, the venue boasts over 400 seats, meaning everyone can get a taste of Napa, Sonoma, Provence, Tuscany and other famed grape growing and winemaking (and wine drinking) regions.
Two weeks after opening at 2200 Pennsylvania Ave. NW, Washington’s newest wine bar hosted a party to introduce itself to the neighborhood, featuring a live D.J., a tower of Sixty Vines’ signature Sesenta Cava, a build-your-own-sangria station and a bountiful spread of charcuterie boards, hummuses and housemade ricotta.
On Washington Circle near George Washington University Hospital, Sixty Vines incorporates communal seating and a “pinkies down” approach to wine. The establishment’s goals? To welcome guests and inspire conversation, turn residents of the mixed-use building into regulars, tap into the after-work crowd and create memories that will make customers want to return every weekend.
And there’s another element at the center of the Sixty Vines mission: sustainability.
The wastefulness of the wine industry propelled Sixty Vines into creating a groundbreaking alternative: kegs. “After watching mountains of glass go into the trash for so long, we knew we had to figure out a better way,” attests CEO Jeff Carcara. The bar’s state-of-the-art wine-on-tap keg system guarantees that both the first glass and the last taste precisely the way the winemaker intended.
Hand-painted ceramic tiles label the wine above each tap. Each stainless-steel keg holds the equivalent of as many as 26 bottles; over its 30-plus-year lifetime, a keg can save nearly 2,340 pounds of trash. Though most are stainless steel, the few plastic kegs are sent out for recycling at local breweries.
If you prefer your wine sparkling, the foil-less Sesenta Cava (“sesenta” is Spanish for 60) is a Sixty Vines exclusive. Since the bubbles require glass-bottle storage, Sixty Vines not only purchases a carbon offset, but sends the corks to an artist to be transformed into jewelry and bags. One such artist, Shona D’Cruz, primarily a glass mosaicist, created an artwork of the Capitol entirely from repurposed cork.
Patrons can also contribute to cork recycling. If you bring in a bag of corks, you receive a free pour. Overall, Sixty Vines expects to save 37,000 bottles, corks, foil and labels from landfills annually in D.C. The company has also partnered with local business Yelō Candle Co. to produce candles in recyclable glass jars.
If you’re craving a frozen Aperol spritz, hankering to build-your-own charcuterie board or just planning a brunch with friends, pop on over to Sixty Vines. Incidentally, the private room in the rear of the venue can accommodate events from baby showers to business meetings.
But don’t let the generous amount of seating fool you. You heard it here first: Sixty Vines will soon have a line out the door.
