The cork opened April 1st at Rooted, Mount Pleasant’s newest wine bar and bottle shop, bringing in worldwide wines, regional beers and a relaxing atmosphere to the developing Carolina Park neighborhood in North Mount Pleasant. Located across the Costco on Park Avenue, Rooted was opened by Kevin Regan, Peter Demarest and William Hoffman, who all met three years ago when Bin 526 opened up on Daniel Island.
“I always told Kevin, ‘If you ever have an idea, let me know,’” Demarest said. “And then he called me about a year and a half ago saying he found a space and it’s been going ever since.”
Regan described Rooted as: “a big combination of all the places I’ve worked. If you look at Graft or Edmund’s Oast Exchange, you have to hit it from both angles. It can be a retail shop and a bar – and it just makes sense. There’s none of that out here, either.”
Carolina Park is still a growing community, and with Rooted being the only bottle shop in the area, finding the market and which types of wines to carry has been a work in progress. But in the three weeks it’s been open, clear signs have shown up. Demarest, who’s been a sommelier for a decade working in spots like the Grand Bohemian Hotel in downtown Charleston, said he’s trying to focus his wine selection on his ability to educate the customer.
“For me, it’s about education,” he said. ”So I like to sell stuff that I can teach people. If you come in here, and if you grab one of our rioja Spanish reds and then you see one anywhere else in the world, for the rest of your life, you should be like, ‘Oh, like, this tastes like the one that Peter and Kevin showed us.’”
And to help Demarest fulfill that longing desire to educate, Rooted also offers wine flights – a selection of wines presented in a row for tasting. “It’s the best way to do it because you can try stuff side by side,” he added. “It’s how you know what’s different from each wine and helps me hone in your tastes. If you liked B and you liked A, but you hated C; well, C was French and A and B are American oak, so we can kind of just narrow in a little bit more.”
Regan, on the other hand, likes to push the boundaries of his customers’ taste buds, offering wine customers would never think of buying, and sometimes, wines Rooted’s resident sommelier has never heard of. Just last week, Regan offered L’Alpage Chasselas, a Swiss wine, to two customers. Demarest had no clue it existed.
“It’s like, give me your base, and then I’m going to try and find something more obscure that you’re gonna like and you’ve never had before,” Regan said. “And then you’re gonna come back and buy a bottle because you’re like, ‘this is the only place I’ve seen this.’ I just love weird, different stuff.”
In addition to reds, whites and bubbles, Rooted carries small and large charcuterie and cheese boards for guests to snack on with their wines and regional beers on draft for the non-wine drinkers that are “familiar, but different,” with hazy IPAs, light lagers and a Hefeweizen.
Rooted Bottle Market and Bar is located at 3510 Park Avenue and open Tues.-Thurs. from 11 a.m.-8 p.m., Fri.-Sat. 11 a.m.-10 p.m. and Sun. from 11 a.m.-6 p.m.
Help keep the City Paper free.
No paywalls.
No subscription cost.
Free delivery at 800 locations.
Help support independent journalism by donating today.
