October 2026: What's Up @ Wine Stop?
It’s October. How do we know? The calendar says so.
Does Mother Nature think in terms of time? Probably not. She just moves forward—season by season, each one carrying something from the one before.
That brings us to vines, wines, and Wine Stop.
They say a bottle of wine remembers its growing season. And over time, wine can seem numb, alive, asleep, awake—and eventually, at its peak.
Wine Stop has come of age, too.
It all started in October 2016. Ten years later, our three stores—DTLA, SVLK, and ECPK—have slowly evolved to reflect their neighborhoods.
SVLK serves wines by the glass Tuesday through Sunday. ECPK is adding more beers, snacks, and those emergency essentials you suddenly realize you need. DTLA is becoming a wine-education destination, offering self-guided sake, sherry, and aged-wine tastings very soon.
Some of our wine selections are even becoming exclusive to individual stores. Of course, the core Wine Stop selections will always be available across all three.
Ten Years of Drink Better
“Drink Better” was never just a marketing slogan. It describes how we select wine: quality, authenticity, and value.
Picking known brands, buzzword wines, highly scored wines, or influencer-promoted wines doesn’t necessarily require anyone to actually taste them.
We do.
Every single wine.
Our rejection rate is probably among the highest in the industry because we taste first for quality, not whether we personally like a wine.
That distinction matters.
You can like a marginal wine. You can dislike a beautifully made wine with a classic profile. Preference and quality are not the same thing.
That’s why we say Wine Stop selections still need to be discovered by you.
We use a simple way of thinking about the enormous world of wine: roughly 10% is genuinely good, a much larger share is simply okay or mediocre, and plenty is bad. We proudly concentrate on that top 10%—at every price level, from $15 to $120.
This isn’t something that evolved over ten years. It was a hardcore Wine Stop principle from day one.
And now we’re extending that same philosophy beyond wine—to our beers, sakes, mezcals, bottled waters, snacks, and coffees.
After ten years, we’ve actually become pickier.
Just one example: We’ve always loved Beaujolais. Yet it took us ten years to find an unknown small family producer there whose wines have never been exported to the United States.
Four of their Beaujolais—including a Village, Fleurie, Morgon, and a Chiroubles—should be sitting on our shelves by the end of November.
Probably not for very long.
Finding the Winemakers
It’s rare to find a winery where we believe virtually everything they make belongs on our shelves.
When we stumble upon one, we jump.
Eventually, we would love for our entire portfolio to consist of these extraordinary winemakers. They already represent the vast majority of our selections.
Different countries. Different grapes. Different philosophies. Different wines.
What connects them is pride in their craft and pride in what goes into the bottle.
The Next Ten Years
What will the next ten years look like?
Maybe a couple more Wine Stop shops in Los Angeles. Definitely an even stronger focus on what makes each neighborhood Wine Stop unique.
DTLA. SVLK. ECPK.
Three Wine Stops, each developing its own personality, while sharing the same commitment to quality, authenticity, and value.
And we got here because of you—our customers.
No influencers. No TikTok machine. Just ten years of people walking through our doors, discovering a bottle, coming back, and telling someone else about it.
Thank you.
Here’s to the next ten years—and many more wines that make you want a second glass.
See you soon.
Drink Better. Live Better.
2016-2036.
