The Savory Grape: a Carefully Curated Rhode Island Wine Shop
Rhode Island is a small state, but that means wherever you are, there is a great Rhode Island wine shop close by. The Savory Grape is one of these great ones, tucked away in a small shopping center on Division Road in East Greenwich. From the outside, it would be easy to miss if you weren’t looking for it. That would be a shame. Stepping through the door is like stepping into your dream home’s wine cellar. Dark wood, warm colors, and lighting that highlights the wine lets you know instantly that you are in a shop that cares about your experience and not just sales.
Photo by Scott Indermaur Photography, courtesy of The Savory Grape
Jess and Nino Granatiero opened The Savory Grape in 2006 to provide a wine buying experience that emphasizes a carefully curated selection of stand out wines from small vineyards around the world. This means they do things a little differently. Wines are stocked not by region, but by body style. This means your favorite Spanish red might lead you to a great wine from Austria. And while their selection includes high-priced collector’s wines, it also includes a vast assortment of wines under $15.
The dedication to finding the best wines leads Jess and Nino to small vineyards around the globe. Regular trips to Italy help them build relationships with growers and winemakers. These relationships result in a unique selection of wines that can’t be easily found elsewhere. Jess says these personal relationships from around the globe give The Savory Grape’s Rhode Island wine aficionados a chance to connect with their wines on a more personal level. In fact, she recently began inviting customers to go on wine buying trips, taking the personal connection with wines to an entirely new level.
It’s about the Experience – From a Bottle of Wine to a Special Event.
Jess tells me her goal for The Savory Grape was and is to create a place where beginners and experienced wine connoisseurs alike could have a comfortable buying experience. To Jess, this means training her staff in the nuances of wine tasting and education, and giving them the confidence and experience to share their knowledge with customers. While this is a great goal, Jess says it didn’t feel like a destination, but rather a step to new adventures. She found her customers began asking for help with pairing wine and food for events. These requests led The Savory Grape to a natural evolution in providing the best experience possible for their customers – The Savory Affair.
The Savory Affair grew from consulting on wine and food pairings, to hosting social parties, and now includes full-scale corporate events and weddings. The Savory Affair team is mostly an in-house operation, but their partners, including Flowers By Semia, The Newport Yachting Center, and Seams Couture, can bring any dream to life. All this begs the question, isn’t a bottle of wine just a bottle of wine? Jess Granatiero would say no. For The Savory Grape and The Savory Affair, it is about the experience, from “just” a bottle of wine to special events.
