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Review: Uncorked Tasting Room and Wine Bar in Austin, TX
900 East 7th Street
(512) 479-8117
Website: Uncorked Tasting Room & Wine Bar
Hours: Monday thru Saturday, 11am-12am
Happy hour: Not yet
Our rating: 
Uncorked Tasting Room and Wine Bar is the newest wine bar in Austin. Located at 900 East 7th Street, it is the second wine bar to open east of IH 35 as the entertainment district continues to expand in downtown Austin. We stopped by after work on a Tuesday night to see how things are coming along.
Uncorked is a remodeled house (formerly Angie’s) giving it some cozy rooms for friends to gather and drink wine. When it is cooler, Uncorked also offers a nice outdoor seating area. Inside, the décor is rather sparse, but I am sure that the owners will be adding details as they settle into their new spot.
Uncorked’s wine list includes 31 whites, 37 reds, 8 sparklers, 4 rosé and 4 dessert wines. Essentially all wines are available both by the glass and by the bottle. Most wine bars charge about 1/4 of their bottle price for a glass, but Uncorked glass prices are higher at closer to 1/3 of their bottle price. Uncorked’s mark-up on their bottle prices is about 2x retail, which is on the low side of the mark-up most of the wine bars in Austin are charging.
In addition to its standard wine list, Uncorked offers 14 different wine flights, ranging in price from $10 to $20. We (like everyone else in the bar) ordered a flight.
I selected a flight of Alsatian wines, and as is my tradition at wine bars in Austin, one of the wines was corked. When I presented the wine to the bartender/owner, the offending wine was quickly replaced. This was good for me, but bad for all the other people who had drunk the wine from this bottle because it had been opened a long four days ago (the date was written on the back of the bottle). Michael ordered a flight of Rieslings, none of which were corked, but in general the wines were not very exciting.
After the white wine, I ordered a flight of Pinot Noirs, Michael ordered a Spanish red flight, and we split a plate of Three Piggy’s pâté ($12). The Pinots were okay, but again there was nothing special about the selection. Michael reported that the Spanish wines were all somewhat new world in style with plenty of upfront oak. The pâté was good, but the serving portion was quite small for the price.
All in all, Uncorked is a pleasant place, but there are some rough edges that need to be smoothed as the owners and staff settle into their new roles. Service was extremely slow, in part because everyone and everything is new and in part because all the patrons were ordering flights of wine, which understandably take a while to prepare and serve.
Uncorked offers plenty of wines by the glass, but the selection was somewhat obscure. I know folks like to try new wines — I sure do — but more reliable and well-known standbys should appear on the wine list as well.
We will go back to Uncorked again to see how things are progressing, and you can be sure we will let you know what we think.
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
[…] Uncorked Tasting Room and Wine Bar – Just to the east of IH 35, Uncorked is a cozy wine bar in an old house. It has plenty of wines by the glass, as well as flights. There are good food options too, but most are a bit overpriced. Hours are M-Sat 11am to midnight. Located at 900 East 7th St. […]
Why do all these reviews only look at the negative side of the wine bar? I also wonder how you would know what these places are paying for any given bottle of wine. Seems like someone with your “knowledge” and extremely high standards should open his own private wine bar for him and his pretentious friends. I’ve been to Uncorked and had an excellent experience with some of my wino friends. We will definitely be returning to this great new addition of East Austin. Keep it up guys! Well thats just my review on wineenabler.com
@ Local Wino, comment 2
First off, thanks for your comments. We are glad you are enjoying Austin’s wine bars so much. We have had fun at almost every wine bar we’ve reviewed so far. Perhaps we did not highlight this fact enough, and we will take your comment to heart. I’m sorry you feel our reviews are overly negative.
(We do want to point out that we have given quite favorable reviews to some wine bars – Taste, Wink, Aquarelle, Vino Vino, and The Grove are just a few examples.)
A good group of friends can most certainly have a good experience at any of our wine bars in town. However, we still consider that our main objective is to talk about the wine we are served (most especially for owner chosen flights), its freshness, and the price markup. As a fellow wino who likes good wine but doesn’t have a lot of extra money, I would love to have this information before trying a new place.
About the prices of wine, we know how much the markup is on the wine because we know how much some of the bottles cost in stores. Then we compare it to how much they charge. Then we do some math. Figuring out they charged 1/3 of their bottle price for a glass is even easier — it’s all right there on their menu.
The truth is that Neil did get served a wine that was four days old, which we know because the date was written on the bottle. And our opinion is that if we’re paying on the order of $10 for a glass of wine, we don’t think it’s too much to ask that the wine is fresh. If you think that us not wanting to pay for oxidized wine amounts to overly “high standards”, then let’s just agree to disagree.
It is also true that the pate was pretty overpriced for the small serving size, my Riesling flight was not very exciting, and we waited for our second round of drinks for fifteen minutes.
But we’re glad you like Uncorked so much. We realize they just opened, and we make it clear that we will go back and see how things are going. Hopefully, they will get faster at serving wine, stop serving old wine, and become the great wine bar they almost are.
Cheers.
Local Wino,
Thanks for taking the time to give us some feedback. I think Michael covered the salient points I just want to address the personal issues raised by your post.
I do not own a wine bar because a profitable wine bar must sell wine, and lots of it, to pretentious people, people that talk to loud, people that look funny and all sorts of other people that you might not want to invite to your house. That is the way that the hospitality industry works.
With regard to high standards, I do expect to be served a drinkable glass of wine. Opening a cork tainted bottle is not the fault of the wine bar, it is a manufacturing issue. Serving a cork tainted glass of wine is the fault of the bar. If wanting a drinkable glass of wine means I have high, pretentious standards, you are correct.
Serving spoiled or tainted wine is an easy problem to fix. Taste each bottle of wine when it is opened. This does two things, it stops bad bottles from being served and it keeps management up to speed on how a wine is showing. After a bottle is opened, use Argon and proper storage to preserve the wine as long as possible. Carefully monitor the previously opened wine as it is served. What you will find is that some bottles must be discarded after just a day or two, but others stay acceptable longer.
I hope Uncorked and the other wine bars in Austin thrive, I like to visit them and I think it is good for the city.
Cheers,
Neil
A very large group of us went to Uncorked last night. It was raining, and there wasn’t room for all of us inside. Our server and the owners were very busy - a huge group of people were around the bar watching the Olympics. Yet service was great - we ordered 8 items off the starter menu, everyone was drinking flights and every time our server appeared more of us had arrived. I tasted several new wines and was impressed with 85% of them. Later we moved to the bar and chatted with the owners - who were generous with their knowledge of wine and who effortlessly catered to our wide variety of tastes.
The food was very good - and reasonably priced. So was the wine for that matter.
UnCorked is my new favorite wine bar by far - can’t wait to enjoy the deck in dryer weather.
- Charlotte
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