BETHLEHEM In the coming weeks, wine and liquor distributor Upstate Wine and Spirits, located at 180 Delaware Ave. in the Delaware Plaza in Delmar, will move two stores down in the same plaza to a larger location. The new space provides greater room for expanded stock as well as a separate room for their wine and spirit tasting classes.
“We’re already go,” said Todd Yutzler, sole owner of Upstate Wine and Spirits. “Now it’s just a matter of getting over there.”
Beyond holding wine tastings, Harvest Spirits Core Vodka in Valatie, Nine Pin Cider in Albany, as well as whiskey distributors and more are on the calendar to hold tastings once Upstate Wine makes its move. Between 20 and 25 people may attend classes on a first-come, first-serve basis.
The store already has wine tasting on Saturday afternoons, but with the new back room in their larger location and its newly-installed dishwasher, the free tastings will be expanded, and themed.
“On Tuesday nights we might have a ladies’ nights from 5 to 8 p.m., where ladies drink for free; We’ll have wine tasting to teach about Italian versus French or California chardonnay; But then we could also get a night where we have a professional come in and have limited scotch tasting,” said the owner.
No official opening date has been announced beyond a lofty “very soon” from Yutzler, but after the store opens in January, an official grand opening party is scheduled to be held in February.
Still, the anticipation of the moves leaves Yutzler excited. “We have 40 new wine racks, new black shelves with mahogany,” he said, as well as an “Upstate State of Mind” section for Upstate New York-sourced wines he named after Billy Joel’s “New York State of Mind.” The section will accompany other country-coded sections, in a style customers are used to.
For the past 10 years, Yutzler has been the sole owner of Upstate Wine and Spirits, but the business is as old as the Delaware Plaza itself. Yutzler bought the store from his aunt and uncle, Peter and Donna Divine, whose ownership came after Peter’s father, Jim Devine, began the business in 1967.
Upstate Wine and Spirits, which has been at its third and current location since 1983, will move to the center of the Plaza, where Fashion Bug was once located.
“We’re the longest running continuous shop in the plaza. No one has been around as long as we have,” said Yutzler. “This was a great opportunity to move into a bigger space, with new flooring, wine racks, shelving and a new wine tasting. It’ll be really cool once you see it.”