The merchant-bar hybrid that built modern Sao Paulo wine culture and still sets the bar's value benchmark.
merchant · Iconic Open since 1958, Empório Alto dos Pinheiros is the merchant-bar that taught most of the city's sommeliers how to taste. The front room is part deli, part neighbourhood bottle shop; the rear is a battered bar where you pay corkage on anything you pull off the shelf and drink it on the spot with bolinhos and aged Mineiro cheese.
The list runs to fifteen hundred labels, weighted heavily toward Spain, southern France and the Serra Gaúcha, and the by-the-glass programme, six rotating reds, six whites, two skin-contact, is priced more like a wine shop than a restaurant. Third because the format is unique in the city, the prices remain a quiet rebuke to the rest of the trade, and the room continues to be a working canteen for every off-duty sommelier in Pinheiros.
For the full ranking, see our editorial round-up of the 10 best wine bars in Sao-Paulo, the broader Sao-Paulo wine bars guide, and our category index of wine bars worldwide.
