2425 SE 35th Place, 503-208-2061, sewinecollective.com. 4-9 pm Monday, 4-10 pm Wednesday-Friday, 1-10 pm Saturday, 1-9 pm Sunday. Happy hour 4-6 pm daily: $2 off all glass pours and carafes.
Established: September 2012
If there's a defining facet of Portland's wine scene, it's intimacy: Many of the winemakers live and work here in the city alongside us tipplers, which means if you're drinking at the right spots, you will inevitably belly up alongside one at the bar. Nowhere else is this more true than at Southeast Division Street's SE Wine Collective, a clubhouse of sorts for the Oregon progressive wine scene that welcomes all. Some of the best winemakers in the state have worked or are currently working in the Collective's shared winemaking facility, and a lot of the wine you order in the cozy bar space was made on the premises. The crowd is relatively well-to do, with wine-production hands mingling with well-heeled wine ladies and couples on dates.
But even with all the great wine, the food program threatens to steal the show with items like a four-deep deviled egg flight ($7) featuring a beet with caraway, Mama Lil's peppers, smoked trout and a crispy prosciutto egg so voluminous you're forced to deconstruct it in sheer wonderment. Pair that with Division carbonic syrah ($7), a racy blood-rush take on the grape with hidden depths—like a club makeout sesh with a poetry Ph.D.
Bar story: Division winemakers Kate Norris and Tom Monroe fell in love with Oregon wine, packed up their car and drove across the country to Oregon just to start a winery.
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