Marin’s first natural wine shop is coming to San Anselmo Leave a comment
San Anselmo is getting an eclectic new shop for natural wine, vintage books and vinyl. Souvenir will open on March 4, from the team behind Fairfax’s Stillwater restaurant and San Francisco’s Junior bar.
Co-owner David Ruiz believes it will be Marin County’s first store specializing in natural wine. Right now, he said, “you’ve got to go to San Francisco or the East Bay to get a strong natural wine selection.”
Souvenir isn’t the only interesting new drinks business opening in San Anselmo. San Francisco’s Woods Beer & Wine Co. announced recently that it plans to open a taproom right across from Souvenir’s location. The town already has a couple of wine destinations, like Jillie’s Wine Bar and Ludwig’s Fine Wine.
The idea for the shop arose during the early months of the pandemic, when Stillwater, which opened in 2020, was selling lots of wine to go. The restaurant’s bar manager, Dylan Jones, started a wine club and quickly attracted lots of interest. It worked well initially, especially since Jones could use the dining room for wine storage while the restaurant was closed for indoor dining.
A nook for books at Souvenir.
Courtesy David RuizBut as restrictions eased and Stillwater welcomed diners indoors, Jones realized he didn’t have enough space to keep the inventory that the wine club required. They shut the wine club down.
That drove Ruiz and Jones to look for a new space nearby. The original plan was to open a wine bar, but their idea evolved into a bottle shop, partially because the permitting was easier to obtain.
Souvenir reflects the interests of its three partners — Ruiz, his wife Margaret and Jones. “It’s really more of a multifaceted shop than just a wine shop,” Ruiz said. They’re stocking the bookshelves with genres that they’re each passionate about, ranging from “cooking to skateboarding to flowers,” said Ruiz. The vinyl represents an array of genres too, including indie, country and jazz. Home items like glassware, as well as a selection of hard-to-find craft beer, will round out the selection.
Incorporating personal-feeling, non-wine items into wine shops has become a growing trend in recent years. Bars like Verjus (which is currently closed) added magazines and cooking supplies; the Castro’s new Bottle Bacchanal sells glassware that its owner has found at estate sales. The idea of this hyper-curated shopping experience is baked into Souvenir’s name.
Dylan Jones, who started a wine club at Stillwater restaurant during the pandemic, is a co-owner of Souvenir in San Anselmo.
Courtesy David RuizJazz records and cookbooks aside, at the center of the shop are its 17-foot-tall walls of wine. Although “minimal intervention” is the guiding principle behind the wine choices, Ruiz said that the team isn’t dogmatic about what qualifies as natural wine. (The bottles won’t have to be zero-zero, for example.) Rather than police wines’ sulfur levels, he said, they’re mainly interested in supporting wine producers who are small-scale and independent.
The eventual goal is to incorporate some sort of bar service, whether indoors or in a parklet, though for now their permit doesn’t allow that. Ruiz hopes that the dynamic nature of the store makes it an appealing place for locals to hang out.
“We sourced a really cool hi-fi sound system from this guy in Sacramento — the sound is on another level,” he said. “We’ll be playing music in there, and we’re hoping that whether you’re looking for wine, music, books, flowers, a gift, that you can come hang out, sit in the window, feel the vibe we’re presenting.”
Souvenir. Opening March 4. 570 San Anselmo Ave., San Anselmo. 11 a.m.-7 p.m. Tuesday-Sunday. souvenirbottle.com
Esther Mobley is The San Francisco Chronicle’s senior wine critic. Email: emobley@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @Esther_mobley Instagram: @esthermob
