Longtime Berkeley-based wine importer and retailer Kermit Lynch, one of the keystones of the Berkeley food world for five decades, has just expanded with its second-ever retail location, in Larkspur.
It's big news for wine lovers in and around Larkspur that Kermit Lynch Wine Merchant will open a new location at the Marin County Mart tomorrow, Tuesday, December 9, just in time for holiday imbibing.
Founded in 1972 with a store in Albany that, by the early 80s, would move across the border into Berkeley, Kermit Lynch Wine Merchant has earned national acclaim as an importer, wholesaler, and retailer of fine French and Italian wine, often at fairly reasonable prices. And until this week, the only storefront the company has ever had was that one in Berkeley.
But the company's president, Dixon Brooke, says that the opportunity to expand to the Marin County Mart made more and more sense, so they decided to go ahead with it this year.
"The Marin shop will have a very similar ethos to the Berkeley shop: a high-touch, friendly environment that helps our clients dive into the endless pleasures of French and Italian wine," Brooke says. "We’re excited to get to know our Marin neighbors and to have a new place to connect with our North Bay clientele.”
As the Chronicle reports, the owner of Marin County Mart, J.S. Rosenfield & Co., first approached Kermit Lynch eight years ago, noting that the upscale, food-centric shopping center could use a nice wine store. And it took until now for the company to decide to open a second retail location — with much of its business focused on wholesale and distribution.
Lynch, now 84, was a pioneer in bringing lesser known French producers to the American marketplace, via the Bay Area. As the Chronicle notes, he began taking trips to the French countryside to seek out wines with "soul" in the early 1970s, and as he's noted in interviews, he was introduced to many winemakers initially by the great food writer Richard Olney, who was also a mentor of Alice Waters.
Lynch would later become a pioneer of refrigerated shipping for wine, having noted how French Burgundies often tasted different after they'd made the trip across the Atlantic and across the US.
Lynch's first book, Adventures on the Wine Route: A Wine Buyer's Tour of France, was published in 1988. And his Berkeley wine shop has become a touchstone for wine lovers across the region and beyond. In addition to being the exclusive importer of Alice Waters's favorite Bandol rose, Lynch now also sells his own Kermit Lynch-branded Cotes-du-Rhone blend each year, in addition to others which can often be found at Bi-Rite and elsewhere.
Kermit Lynch Wine Merchant opens at Marin County Mart Tuesday, and will be open seven days a week — 10 am to 6 pm Sunday through Friday, and 9 am to 6 pm on Saturday.
Top image: The Berkeley store, via Yelp
