A wine destination like no other? The Masters, April 11-14, 2024
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I spent about two hours researching the wine scene in and around Augusta National for Masters Week. While I’ve heard that the Club itself has a fabulous wine program that I hope to profile one day (got about as much chance of that as I do playing there), the rest of the area seems to be devoid of good wine with two noteworthy exceptions.
As profiled in the News section of swigcoach.com a few months ago, Jason Jones, the former sommelier of Augusta National, has set up a retail store and wine consulting business called Augusta Wine Company. Just 10 minutes from Magnolia Lane, his place should automatically be your first stop upon arrival in Augusta for the Masters or any other time you are passing through. Besides knowing that everything in the store has been thoroughly vetted beforehand, if you give him a little lead-time he can find you nearly anything you want. And who better to fill you in on what goes down (the hatch) in Butler Cabin if you want to drink like a champion?
Cork and Flame in Evans (18 minutes from Augusta National with no traffic) is a world class wine destination. It opened originally as a retail store in 2004 and in 2018 expanded to include a high-end restaurant, so you get the best of both worlds.
The outstanding list now includes about 3000 different wines and 10,000 bottles on premise. You can buy any wine to take out or choose while dining and many of the prices are terrific, both on the lower and upper tiers of reputation and quality. The variety of interesting wines under $50 a bottle is really kind of astonishing and you can find everything from assyrtiko to txakolina along the way. There’s a sweet spot of great selections from $100-150 with some of the lowest restaurant prices I’ve ever seen. If that weren’t enough, the combined enterprise endeavors to ensure that as much staff as possible receives some WSET training and they even offer the classes to the public. From a distance this appears to be a premium operation all the way around.
Between Cork and Flame and Augusta Wine Company, it would be worth the trip even if I never caught a whiff of the hallowed grounds at Augusta National.
