The Wine Bank

Biggest waste of time ever! My friends and I had been planning a post holiday treat for months and wine tasting was a primary part of it. We searched groupon, and made the required reservation only to like other reviewers be told they weren’t doing tastings by a very rude man who really should be doing something that requires him not to be dealing with the general public because his customer skills are straight up garbage. I run a small business myself and the manner which they run there’s has me wondering what management is doing about the repeat issues they are having. This is probably why they were running a groupon but when you can’t even make a customer who got a special price happy you should probably look at your business plan.

Came by on a Saturday afternoon! My bf saw the good reviews on Unilocal and we just felt like going in for some wine!
Tip — try Groupon — $ 15 for a tasting for 2. I don’t know if I would have given 5 stars instead of 4 if this deal wasn’t so amazing. Will try to make it back to this place the next time we are in downtown San Diego! This is why!
–Heavy pours. I believe we had 5 or 6 tastings, and this is not your «tasting» pour, we got almost a glass of wine each time. Needless to say — I was already feeling the wine by the last tasting.
–The Saturday afternoon we went, they were featuring African wines — all very well priced and cheap and they were pretty good wines! I think I liked that, to know that there are good and inexpensive wines out there. Most places aren’t going to sample their most expensive wines anyway, and it’s also easier to be like «wow, I like this wine. and it’s only $ 13?! Lets get a bottle!» Plus, it was one of the first times drinking African wine, I like that it was very diverse with their choices.
–When we were there, there was a bachlorette party and a group of girls that just brought food and had the wine there. I love that it’s just a great place for ppl to gather!
–It’s situated in the basement of the store. But it’s not hard to find. Right when you walk in, just walk straight in a little bit and you see a gate to walk downstairs. It’s very casual. I think that’s why I like it even more. Nothing fancy but great selection nonetheless. There’s a lot of exposed wood from the wine packaging decorated through out the basement and corks and such. So it’s not «well designed» but I do like the feel of it. Nothing upscale — feel free to wear jeans and a tshirt and enjoy the wine!

It’s used to be a great thing, they would talk have generous pours. If you didn’t like something they would give more of the other. The bartender was rude. One of his regular s came in and brought his own wine. Shared with some other regulars. Meanwhile we went for our last tasting he said we were done. My boyfriend had not tasted 5 so he gave his last taste. The other taste I didn’t even take but he could have given me more of what I liked. I asked if I could buy a bottle to have in the cute basement, his answer we are not a bar. Ok what about the man with his own bottle. Not a bar but you accept tips. Cheap wine bad service not worth it.

We went here for the wine tasting. Very poorly done… mediocre wines and none worth the trip or cost. They hand you a piece of paper with the wines listed and a description… no country of origin even listed. Host was pleasant… but limited knowledge. Located in a dark area of the basement. The «event» said 2 hours… we were done in 35 min. Waste of time.

Great selection of wines — nicely laid out by region and the staff can be helpful in making suggestions.
However — DO NOT COME HERE AND PAY 20 DOLLARS PER PERSON FOR A TASTING!!! I cannot emphasize how much of a rip off this is.
First: PRICE — five different tastes with not one single bottle above $ 25 dollars retail??? What kind of profit margin are they making on unsuspecting tourists?
Second, the employee handling the tasting gave no guidance, did not talk about the wine at all just came poured and left before I could even see the name of the wine.
Third — the employee pouring just left in the middle of the tasting! We had done 4 tastes and then we turned around looking for our fifth and he was gone. Left us in the tasting area and went home. We hadn’t even had our last taste. It was 4:50 and the tasting was supposed to end at 5, but apparently he had somewhere to be. I found another employee and he dumped the last of a bottle into my glass and said I could taste it if I wanted.
In summary: great store if you want a large selection and know what you’re looking for, terrible tastings, poor service.

Went there with a Groupon for wine tasting and had a great experience! It’s very cool that you can bring in your own snacks. Highly recommend this place!

This place has awful customer service and nothing but rude employees, planned a trip with 6 people for a birthday wine tasting, I called and made a reservation 4 days prior. my group even booked a hotel in the gaslamp so we could really enjoy ourselves. when we showed up for our tasting on Saturday we were rudely told there were no tastings today, no explanation didn’t care that we had called and made a reservation for that day! The only reason I’m giving a star is so I can write this review and warn people about the horrible experience I had here.

They have a lot of different wine, but do NOT expect to touch any bottles under $ 20. If you need something $ 50-​$ 100 this is your spot, but if not just save yourself the trouble and go to Ralphs. I went to get a Malbec and the cheapest bottle was $ 33. Simple and easy, I wont be back anytime soon.

Four star for the excellent selection of wines and spirits. Good arrangement and sorted. Three star for their prices.

The wine bank has some of the best Champagne selection available (sorry Bevmo) to the public. The guys working there were helpful, we joined the mailing list and really look forward to a tasting there.
The store has the biggest Veuve Clicquot bottle I’ve seen available for purchase.
Very neat store in gas lamp, we learned you can look up inventory on their website so we did this ahead of time to make sure the bottle we wanted was there.
I felt the handling of the wine is excellent, good job with the clear Champagne bottles being kept in their box to avoid being light struck.
My recommendation — Decent pricing/​July 2015:
–Runiart blanc de blancs, at 79.00
–Billecart Salmon Brut reserve at 64.00, Good deal!
the mark up at restaurants is ridiculous
but I have not seen this black label for sale anywhere at this price.
And since I am advising on it, buy the yellow label veuve at trader joes or Costco for 46.00
Vs 59.00 here.
Deals are there, you just have to know your wine and local availability.
Excellent store.

Wine bank?! More like bankrupt!
(All jokes aside)
This place is the worst.
So horrible I’m writing this review 10min after leaving.
My friends and I came for a bachelorette weekend to San Diego and got a groupon for this place. We had a reservation and reservation confirmation email!
We go in, and this rude man tells us the wine tasting was cancelled. We asked why we were not notified… And he proceeded to tell us, RUDELY, that we weren’t on the reservation list… Which we then showed him the email and he said «oh, sorry – I can get the guy who took the reservation in trouble»…
?!
We mentioned that it was a bachelorette and he just looked at us…
Horrible horrible experience… Especially for such a memorable event.
DONT GO HERE… There are many other wine tastings that would treat you much better!
Yuck.

Great selection of somewhat rare wines at prices that are consistently 20+% higher than at other wine stores.
I did find one magnum that seemed reasonable and shipped it to friends in New Orleans. It arrived in the middle of summer without any chill pak or other cool packaging. The bottle was HOT to the touch. Also it was supposed to be shipped on a Monday with 2 day service, but arrived 4 days later.
When I called to complain. there was complete denial of responsibility and completely lame response. Not impressive.

The poor reviews below seem so unjustified, the wine bank really knows their wine. Temperature controlled, I cannot express how much I appreciate their Ruinart blanc de blancs being kept in a BOX under lights due to clear bottles.
The staff was friendly and informed me about tasting events, we joined their email list and I couldn’t be more satisfied.
if you like champagne, enjoy a visit to their downstairs area and check them out!
Very reasonable, I will return!

Went to go grab a bottle of a $ 100 wine 20 min before they closed but I wasn’t allowed to go down stairs (where they keep the good stuff) because they Supposedly close in 5 min?!?

Tip of the iceberg comes to mind: below the waterline, there lies a big quantity of the unknown…
The unremarkable ground level floor area has a very good selection of tequilas — albeit, priceyyyy. There are also some other bits and bobs, but nothing prepares you for what lies beneath…
We wandered into the basement to see what lurked below. My analogy: we had found the holy grail of fine wine in SD or perhaps King Tut’s tomb of jewels and gold! For a true wine lover, the selection is fantastic and voluminous. A-​Z in terms of varietals. Having worked in the Spirits & Wine biz (apart from being a plain old wino), the price points and mark-​ups are definitely premium+++. I suppose this goes back to beggars can’t be choosers and in SD, craft beer reigns and wine culture is not remotely at par with the cerveza/​taco/​burger crowd’s command of the town.
I think the idea is if you really want to get a hard-​to-​find wine and don’t give a bloody toss about the price — somewhat within reason — this is the place. If not, go elsewhere to not have to deal with sticker shock and do the 6 pack for 20% off deal. And, there is absolutely nothing wrong with that — I’m a 20% deal fan.
I would be a regular here, except for premium pricing. Notwithstanding the Shop’s hefty margins, I now do know where to find SD’s most elegant wine selections. Hence, I award this establishment 5 stars based on inventory and a 1 star demerit for pricing.
(Editor’s Note: please get some Robert Sinskey and then we are really talking Napa supreme)

A great wine shop for San Diego. They had some really nice finds and really awesome small production selections and hard-​to-​find wines. Coming from wine country and access to great wine shops here and in San Francisco, this place truly measured up. I honestly wish we had a wine shop like this in my county. Truly some awesome finds.
But yep, they know it, and there are no good «deals» to be had. The owner knows what he has and will charge as such. If you want a good wine shop with a great selection and great finds come here, but if you’re looking for value or friendly service from the owner, this isn’t your spot. We walked in and looked around before walking onto the waterfront and touring around more – so obviously I wasn’t going to carry around wine that whole time. I found a couple of things that piqued my interest and told the owner as I was leaving that I’d be back, but I was walking further and didn’t want to carry the wine around with me. His answer definitely sounded like he didn’t believe me and sort of brushed me off as like «yeah, sure, whatever.» I DID come back and bought a white Burgundy, but his attitude made me pause before I actually did revisit his business. I agree with others that the owner’s attitude definitely needs some tweaking.

This place has a great selection. They focus on the unique and higher end varieties in beer, wine, and spirits. A definite go to location if you are in this area.

An interesting take on wine tasting. I’ve gone to a few wineries, but it was a different experience drinking in a wine tasting room, essentially in a basement in the middle of Downtown. My friend (Jonard T.) was sweet and purchased a Groupon deal for $ 31 for 4 people. It ran from 3pm-​5pm only — to use the deal. We had our amazing friend (Paula N) visiting from OC.
Check in was easy with the front desk cashier, he checked our Groupon, he checked our IDs, stamped our hands and told us to head downstairs. I was skeptical to go down there, but it was easy to navigate down there, all the bottles were so organized and they have a wide variety.
We only found the area to sip and sit. Our first initial glass was where the bartenders were, please don’t forget to tip! I can’t believe I didn’t, really didn’t cross my mind to do so. The tip jar is at this stand.
We had a wine list that was provided with 5 different wines available. 2 whites, 3 reds. As you finish one glass, they are ready to give you a new one, no questions asked. They were great with customer service in that sense. You are able to switch up your wines too, for example, if you don’t love red, you can have more white that’s listed on the menu. I only went through 3 ½ glasses! So if you want to do all 5, make sure you come at 3pm, because at 5 they are ready to kick you out.
Great experience and fun convo @ The Wine Bank! You are also able to bring your own snacks, we had mini muffins and pita chips — went well with the wine :)

On a quaint little corner… in a quaint little shop… in a quaint little city… lies a MEGA HUGE SELECTION OF AWESOMENESS~!!! Have a wine you want but can’t find it anywhere in SD? Check this joint out. They don’t have it? Talk to Mike… perhaps he can give you a helping hand to find that special bottle for you. High dollar to Medium dollar, this place certainly has the selection you are looking for.

Good selection of beer at breathtaking prices. Yes, beer though I know it’s a wine store. I was limited on time because I was in town on business and needed beer to watch a ball game at my hotel. This was on the way with no time to spare.
They have a small but good and quirky selection of IPAs, much bigger selection of Belgians which don’t interest me. Of course, the beer selection is dwarfed by the wines.
Of the beers I bought, the only one I’m familiar with is Avery Hog Heaven. It’s regularly $ 6.99−7.99 but was $ 10.99 here. That’s a big surcharge to pay for location and convenience. If you are limited on time, this is a good choice. Otherwise, walk a few more blocks to the place on 7^th north of Broadway or get in the car and go to Trader Joe.