September in New York is a strange, wonderful limbo — the last stretch of rooftop rosé weather, the first chill that has you reaching for something red, and a fall calendar that just got very crowded. This week the city picked up a genuinely big piece of wine news, plus a fresh crop of bars on the way and a set of October dates worth booking right now. Here’s what NYC wine lovers should have on their radar.
New York Just Gained a New Master Sommelier
The Court of Master Sommeliers, Americas announced its newest Master Sommeliers this week, and New York sits at the top of the list. Alex Mares, Wine Director at Bourbon Steak NYC inside the JW Marriott Essex House on Central Park South, passed the Master Sommelier exam — widely considered the hardest credential in the wine trade.
Mares’ path is the kind that makes the wine world feel like a meritocracy: a part-time start that turned into a calling, an Advanced Sommelier pass in 2020, and then the long, unglamorous grind of blind tasting, theory, and service that the MS exam demands. For anyone who has spent an evening working through the Bourbon Steak list, this won’t come as a shock. For everyone else, it’s a great excuse to book a table and drink with a newly minted master making the picks.
It matters for the city, too. New York is an absurdly deep wine town, but Master Sommeliers remain rare air — every new one shifts a little more of the global wine conversation toward Manhattan. If you’re building a fall dining list, Bourbon Steak belongs on it.
Fall Openings: The Dame Team’s Walk-In Wine Bar Arrives
The most anticipated wine opening of the season comes from Patricia Howard and Ed Szymanski, the pair behind Dame — the East Village seafood spot that became an instant impossible reservation when it opened in 2021.
This October they’re splitting a single East Village address into two concepts:
- Chippy’s — a counter-service spot where the famously crispy, lace-edged fish and chips become the main event, joined by banoffee pie and disco fries.
- Friars — an 18-seat, walk-in-only wine bar with its own separate entrance, a short food menu, and — this is the part that matters — a long wine list.
A no-reservations wine bar from a team with this track record is exactly the kind of room New York needs more of. Expect a line. Expect it to be worth it. Go early, order by the glass, and let the list do the talking.
Elsewhere, the neighborhood wine-bar map keeps reshuffling. Greenwich Village saw a wine-bar-to-vodka-bar switcheroo this summer, with Parcelle Wine shuttering its space — a reminder that even in a booming wine city, the economics are unforgiving. The good news: for every door that closes, the East Village seems to open two.
Your October Wine Calendar (Book These Now)
If September is the appetizer, October is the feast. Three dates to lock in before they sell out:
Food Network NYC Wine & Food Festival — October 15–18
The big one returns to the Seaport district in Lower Manhattan for four days and 50+ events: grand tastings, walk-around pours, celebrity-chef dinners, and skyline-backed parties. It is enormous, it is crowded, and it is still the single best way to taste across the world in a weekend. Tickets move fast once the schedule drops — build your plan around the two or three tastings you actually want rather than trying to do everything. Bring a friend, split the list, and compare notes at the end of the night.
Wine Spectator’s New York Wine Experience — October 22–24
For the collectors and the serious students, Wine Spectator’s flagship event lands the following week with vertical tastings of legendary bottles and seminars led by the people who made them. This is the deep end of the pool — the place to taste wines you have only ever read about, poured by the winemakers themselves.
NYC Wine Fest at Chelsea Industrial — Saturday, October 24
Want something louder, friendlier, and easier on the wallet? NYC Wine Fest takes over Chelsea Industrial (535 W. 28th St.) for a day of unlimited tastings, food vendors, live music, and autumn-in-New-York energy. Sessions run through the day, sample cup included. It’s the perfect on-ramp for friends who are wine-curious but not yet wine-obsessed.
And if you’re willing to leave the city: the Niagara Wine Trail runs a costume-and-clues murder mystery event on October 17, and the region’s harvest events stretch all the way to a Halloween-day tasting on October 31. Upstate fall, with a glass in hand, is its own reward.
What We’re Drinking: Fall 2026 Trends
The seasonal shift comes with a clear set of bottles showing up on NYC lists and shelves right now:
- Chillable and lighter-bodied reds. Gamay, Grenache, and Pinot Noir lead the charge — wines that carry you from a warm afternoon into a cool evening without demanding a heavy meal. Chill them for twenty minutes and they’re perfect.
- Orange wine, fully mainstream. What was a niche natural-wine curiosity now holds permanent shelf space, with order volumes up sharply year over year and still climbing among younger drinkers. Skin-contact whites are the easiest crowd-pleaser to pour this season.
- Drink less, drink better. Younger drinkers are buying fewer bottles and spending more per bottle, with the $15–$30 range as the sweet spot. Value-hunting is the new flex.
- Iberian and indigenous grapes. With European import prices under pressure, Portugal and lesser-known indigenous varieties are delivering some of the best quality-per-dollar in the city.
The Bottom Line
New York’s wine scene rarely pauses, and this month is proof: a new Master Sommelier to toast, a walk-in wine bar worth standing in line for, and an October calendar that could fill every weekend. Book the festival tickets, save a Tuesday for Friars, and pour something chillable while the weather makes up its mind.
Drink well — and we’ll see you at the bar.