DISH

photo by matt staub photo by mark lozano

TASTE THE WORLD

AT SAIL AWAY WINE

WRITTEN BY JULIE BURTON

There’s a new wine bar in town, and there’s nothing else quite like it in Kansas City. Sail Away Wine is located in the heart of downtown North Kansas City, but you might as well take a step inside the country of your choice.

Russ Johnson is owner of Sail Away Wine, a wine bar that allows you to sip (or pour) wine on tap. He says while a self-service wine bar isn’t a new concept, Sail Away Wine is unique in that it’s the first of its kind in the region. And they also offer food, more specifically flatbread pizzas. It’s been wildly popular, reaching 18,000 unique customers in the first nine months!

“We’re a neighborhood hangout; it’s a social experience,” says Johnson. “Most of the time, our customers come in groups of four or more. Wine is about community and hanging out with other people in a conversational aspect.”

When you walk into Sail Away Wine, you receive a personalized passport card used to unlock the wine of your choice. The bottle wine is displayed behind the glass where the tap pulls from. Each tap has a 1 ounce tasting, a 3 ounce pour, or a 5 ounce pour. Take the passport home with you and when you return, the system will remind you which wines you have tried.

Sail Away Wine brings in wines from Austria, Italy, New York, Germany, Israel, Australia, Portugal, Oregon, Hungary, Denmark, and Croatia, just to name a few. The wines are constantly changing, and the bottles are available to purchase too.

Sail Away Wine offers more than just wine. You can also find Kansas City craft beer plus canned cocktails. And the food—because wine should always be paired with food—is curated to provide an accompaniment to your wine, spirit, or beer. Charcuterie boards, salads, and small plates are available, but the most popular item is the flatbread pizzas.

When developing Sail Away Wine, Johnson built a pizza oven and hired a chef to create flatbread pizzas. “We didn’t want a full kitchen,” Johnson explains. “We found a self-serve wine bar in Colorado that had a pizza oven. We found the pizzas to be a holistic experience, so we incorporated that into Sail Away Wine.” And the effort paid off. Many customers say the pizza alone is worthy of a visit. But the true focus is the wine and conversation. How can you not have great conversations when you’re visiting the world one sip at a time?

Be on the lookout for Sail Away Wine opening another store in Kansas in 2023. Visit sailawaywine.com for more information.

Above: Russ Johnson & Heather Brown, Owners of Sail Away Wine. Photo by Mark Lozano

309 Armour Road, North Kansas City, MO

816.768.0020 sailawaywine.com