Augustine is a wine bar on Ventura Boulevard in Sherman Oaks, pouring about fifty wines by the glass beside a deep bottle list, in a low-lit room built for lingering over a flight.
The space sits on a stretch of Ventura Boulevard with a rustic interior that the Infatuation compares to a converted house in the Burgundy countryside, all warm wood and soft light rather than polish. It reads as a neighborhood room first and a destination second. The effect is a place that rewards staying for a second glass.
The wine program is the reason to come. Augustine pours roughly fifty wines by the glass, priced from about nine to twenty-two dollars, alongside six beers on tap. Behind the by-the-glass list sits a deep cellar that the bar says reaches back to bottles from 1860.
Food comes from a short kitchen menu of charcuterie, grilled Caesar salads, and other small plates built to drink alongside the wine rather than compete with it. Time Out frames the cooking as grazing food for a long sit. Nothing on it asks to be the main event.
The house approach favors guidance over gatekeeping. Staff are used to steering first-timers between an unfamiliar skin-contact white and a safe Burgundy, and the breadth by the glass makes side-by-side comparison easy. A guest can taste three regions without committing to a single bottle.
Augustine reopened after a 2023 kitchen fire shut it for months, and its return drew local coverage and a steady Sherman Oaks following. More than three hundred reviews on Yelp track the comeback. Regulars treated the reopening as the return of a fixture rather than a new arrival.
Hours run from 5pm into the late evening, later on Friday and Saturday. The bar does not take reservations, so the counter and the handful of tables fill on a first-come basis on weekend nights. Arriving early is the simplest way to land a seat.
Who would love it: wine drinkers who want range by the glass and a quiet table for conversation. Who should skip it: anyone after a cocktail list or a loud, late scene, since this is a seated wine room before it is anything else.
Augustine was opened by the sommelier Matthew Kaner, a familiar name in the Los Angeles wine trade, and the by-the-glass-first approach reflects that background. The list is built to be explored a glass at a time rather than sold by the bottle. That philosophy is the throughline of the room.
Ventura Boulevard has quietly become one of the Valley's better drinking strips, and Augustine is among the anchors that pulled wine-minded crowds over the hill. It draws a mix of industry regulars and Sherman Oaks locals. On a weeknight it works as a neighborhood living room.
Value sits at the center of the pitch. With glasses starting near nine dollars and small plates priced to share, a couple can taste widely without a special-occasion bill. The deep cellar is there for the nights that call for it.
The smart order is a flight that crosses styles, one crisp white, one structured red, and a wildcard the staff recommend, with a charcuterie board to share. Augustine ranks among the most useful entries on our best wine bars in Los Angeles list. It also earns a place in our date-night bars in Los Angeles guide for couples who want substance over spectacle.
For more drinking nearby, the full Los Angeles bar guide maps the rest of the Valley and the Eastside. Many regulars pair a glass here with a later stop at Bar Bandini, a few minutes away.
