Twisted Vine Wine & Tap

This place is a treasure. We found it through a Groupon but we’ll be coming back. The wine selection is not enormous but it is thoughtful and the service was attentive without being spooky (we had Eliza but they all seemed nice.) By 6:00 p.m. the place seems to fill up. The charcuterie platter is perfect for two people and we had the very tender hanger steak and the pork chop small plates.

Will definitely go back! We went because we had purchased a Groupon. Had never heard of the place. We’ll go back because the food, atmosphere, and service were fantastic! Thank you for a wonderful meal!

Soooo I didn’t love the brunch I had at Twisted Vine yesterday (if you can call it brunch, since they only had breakfast items on the menu). They might have been having an off day, maybe still recuperating from the holidays. We were one of only two tables in the restaurant at 10am and it took 45 minutes to get our avocado omelets. When they were served, they were lukewarm, as were the hash browns. The flavor was fine, though, and I ate my entire meal. The portion could have been a little bit bigger for $ 10, but I was satisfied when I was finished.
There were 2 other issues aside from the wait time, one of which was beyond their control: #1 — they cannot serve alcohol before 12pm on Sundays, so do not come here earlier than that hoping to have a mimosa with your meal, as I did. #2 — the restaurant was very, very cold. We sat in the window room in the front, which I expected to be a little drafty, but cold air was pumping up from the vent on the floor onto my legs. I was shivering throughout my meal. We were even asked if it was cold, to which we replied yes, but then it just seemed to get colder. I went to the use the restroom and it was frigid in there, too. The «hot» water facet churned out icy water, which was par for the course. Make sure to bring a heavy sweater when dining here on a chilly day, just in case!
Yes I’ll be back, and yes I’ll temper my expectations.

We’ve wanted to try this place since it opened, but haven’t had a chance until the Groupon special changed our minds. It’s a quaint building with exposed brick and wood on the inside, and wooden tables on a cast iron base. There’s both bar and table seating, as well as a patio, weather permitting. The service was quite good, especially impressed with the bartender. Excellent beer and wine selection, and the small plates were quite lovely. This is not somewhere to come for dinner, more of a place for a drink while munching on some excellent small plates and cheese boards. Exactly what I expected from a wine bar. From what we were told, the meats and cheeses come from the Cheese Traveler. We shop there ourselves once in a while, as it’s likely the nicest cheese shop in town, albeit out of our price range for frequent stops. I would say the same for the wine bar, as nice as it is, it’s not someplace we would go more than once or twice a year due to the cost.

We had dinner here on a Wednesday night around seven and there were quite a few people! The bar had 1 or 2 parties and there were 5 tables filled. We asked to be seated further from the door and were accommodated. We had a bottle of champagne which was delicious and the food was great — some traditional tapas with a hip twist. Both as a wine bar and a restaurant it holds its own on both accounts! Don’t skip dessert!

Here’s hoping that the Twisted Vine is still trending up from it’s recent opening. Delmar needs them to succeed.
The space the folks at the Twisted Vine have created is very comfortable and welcoming. The outdoor patio is a nice option and the indoor seating while meager, is well laid out.
The wine and beer selection at the Twisted is very good. We’d love to see more turnover in the tap lineup — but all in all the Twisted is a great place to stop for a drink.
Unfortunately, we haven’t found the Twisted to be a great place to eat. We’ve tried most of the items on the small menu and found the dishes to be hit and miss. The cheese plate in particular was a huge disappointment — especially considering the price. Hit and miss also describes the Daily Specials — some have been good while others have been downright disappointing. The Yukon Potato Flatbread was just that — Yukon Potatos on Flatbread (with some grated cheese sprinkled on top). It was as dry as the description implies — very unsatisfying.
We’ve also found the service to be uneven. The servers and bartenders are unfailingly nice but they seem to lack the front of the house training that would elevate the Twisted Vine experience.
A few years ago, I would have given the Twisted Vine 3 or 4 stars just for the effort. Fortunately for us, the Capital Region scene has gotten much more sophisticated of late and new places like the Twisted Vine need to compete with the likes of Wine Bar on Lark and the Lucas Confectionary in Troy. For better or worse, the bar has been raised (pun intended).
We’ll continue to check in to see if things at the Twisted Vine improve (and at least have a drink). The above carping aside, we’re pulling for the Twisted Vine to work out the kinks and become something special. It’s a long drive to Troy.

Great food and wine, friendly staff, lovely atmosphere. Just what Delmar needed. These guys know what they’re doing!

Delmar has a fun spot to enjoy… a decent beer list and good selections of wine. Nine pin would be an excellent add on. Meals did not disappoint. Visited twice with two different couples and both times was enjoyable… first time. outdoors…second time… indoors. Wait staff attentive.
Only one foible… pretty noisy indoors… however, I’m sure something can be done with acoustics. Cheers to owners for giving us a neighborhood bistro as well as offering live music on selected nights.

The Twisted Vine in Delmar is a relaxing place to have a delicious glass of wine and a small plate. The Blue cheese Fondue, flatbread pizza and crab cakes are so delicious. I am going to have my wedding shower here in November! Owner is so easy to work with! Highly recommended this place!

This is my first review of a place I didn’t actually get to eat at! Within walking distance of my house, I was excited to try it, but their website didn’t show a phone number or whether they took reservations (they don’t). So we walked here and there was an hour wait. The place was hopping, with tables outside and in. The young lady at the front podium didn’t know which nights they had live entertainment, but they do have it. Didn’t have it Friday at 7:30 that I could tell from the doorstep. I could only say that it was loud inside and out. We were hungry so went to Swifty’s across the street, and had my favorite– Reuben spring rolls! Twisted’s overflow looks to be making Swifty’s even more popular!
When I actually get to eat here, I plan to have the fish tacos. Then I’ll add some stars to make up for a frustrating experience. And note: they close at 10 PM! C’mon– Delmar’s better than that!

This is a fun, comfortable, hip, without being pretentious, place. I wish I lived closer to Delmar, I would live in this restaurant. We went Saturday night with friends. Their wine list is soooo extensive. I think it’s better than 677 Prime, which I was not impressed with. 3 of us started with a different wine each, and my husband tried an amazing IPA called Molotov Cocktail… All were delicious! Then we ordered the large cheese plate, which also included meats, which I hear were delicious… the cheeses certainly were! They get their cheeses from my very favorite store in Albany… The Cheese Traveler, and they did not disappoint!
Next we shared a bottle of wine, and ordered from their small plates. Two had the skewers, the steak was purportedly better than the chicken. My friend ordered the fish tacos, which she said were excellent, and I ordered the crab cakes, which were actually out of this world… and I am not a crab cake lover per se. I like them, but I LOVED these!
The only place where they may have strayed was in the dessert department. We ordered the crème brule, and the flourless cake. The crème brule was only lightly hardened on the top, and only… meh. The cake was waaaayyyyyy too cold and should have been served room temp.
The only other «complaint» would be to include one or 2 sides to eat with the small plates, change a la cart you’ll make more money. A rice pilaf, a truffle mashed potato… seriously, you’ll make a killing. But, if you are drinking that much wine, and only offering small plates, a nice starch would balance off the meal.
Lastly, they had a wonderful jazz guitarist who played on the patio as we dined.
How civilized. I would strongly suggest they start a Sunday jazz brunch with this gentleman, he was wonderful!
It is a new venue, with room for improvement, as with anything. But, even with my mild complaints (and my husband will tell you I complain a lot), I think this is a charming, comfortable, smart place to dine. We will undoubtedly be back!

Like the fact that Delmar has another restaurant so I sincerely hope that this establishment succeeds. Having said that, it needs a bit of work. First of all, the service is exceptional. Our waitress was great, in all aspects. We were a party of four. We didn’t order from the available beer but due to the balmy weather, we opted for Prosecco. Decent and ice cold and reasonably priced. Now for the food. We started with the Chef’s platter at $ 30. An assortment of cheeses, prosciutto, a cured meat, pâté, quartered pita bread and assorted jams. Not large portions of each but enough for the four of us to sample each of the offerings. We then ordered additional small plates; 2 orders of the fish tacos, one beef skewer with Cabernet sauce and one fried green tomato plate. The fish tacos came fairly unadorned with simply the tacos and a wedge of lime sitting on a plate. Not a great or appealing presentation but I had a bite and they were tasty. The beef skewers (2) contained barely 1 – 2 oz portions of a strip of beef drizzled with the Cabernet sauce. Again, two strips of beef on a wooden skewer and the aforementioned sauce. Sad, due to a total lack of imagination. The meat was a bit chewy and completely devoid of any seasoning including salt and not a shaker of salt in sight. The Cabernet sauce was lackluster as well and seemed to be heavy on the Cabernet and light on beef stock. Almost as if they thickened the Cabernet with a slurry and forgot the brown sauce altogether. If there’s one item in this world that scream for salt, it’s beef. I realize some folks superimpose skull and crossbones on a salt shaker but, unfortunately, I’m not one of them. Restaurants that fail to offer salt and pepper to diners irk me to no end. I pay my doctor to tell me what I should and shouldn’t eat and I pay the chef to cook my food. I don’t need some pompous Chef to decide that he doesn’t want salt and pepper available to diners. I suspect if I had requested it, my waitress probably would have obliged but the point is, I shouldn’t have to make a special request for salt and pepper. The fried green tomatoes looked delicious… and they were. (I had a bite). 2 bottles of Prosecco, 1 app for four and 4 small plates came in about $ 150 with tax and tip. Reasonable. Next time I’ll bring my own salt ms pepper.

Meh… they still have things to work out. Tables outside are beautiful but in some cases slanted. Servers are lovely but need more education about the food and wine. Also quite slow. Dessert was the best course and the ubiquitous homemade potato chips with blue cheese fondue were decent. Sliders were not cooked to order, fried green tomatoes caprese was under done, and the Flatbread pizza totally missed the mark. Dough was flabby, sauce was too sweet, and it lacked seasoning. Not sure what the cheese board is like but would recommend sticking to that, dessert, and the wine. Or just wine. The wine selection is solid but I would expect that for a wine bar.
Even though I can walk here I would still choose the wine bar on lark, lucas confectionery, and the gingerman first. Hope twisted vine ups its game and doesn’t choose to be a mediocre suburban destination.

This was the perfect way to start off the weekend. My daughter and I enjoyed sangria and white wine, special fries, sliders and an amazing flatbread pizza with fresh mozzarella and a very tasty chocolate espresso cake dessert on the patio. Wish we lived closer but it was definitely worth the trip from Rotterdam NY.

Big fans of the new Twisted. It’s so refreshing to have another option to enjoy outdoors. The beer selection was fantastic, the wine worked for the women we were with and the dishes were excellent. Fish tacos and sliders were our favorites.
We went on a Thursday night and despite being packed with a well-​dressed crowd, which we loved, we enjoyed hanging outside… standing and sipping. I think the place could use more wall art and unique trim details, but that’s all in time while you grow. Best of luck to your newest expansion team!

I can walk here, which means that I immediately have a bias. However, I love small plates and wine, lots of wine, so without taking a bite, this joint was going to get at least three stars.
Thankfully, it’s great!
The wine list is varied, both in price, style and region, and I can’t imagine someone being displeased with any choice. True, it’s not the small batch vineyards found in Troy, but the two wines, a white and a rose, that I enjoyed were great and just what a tough week needed. My husband was equally happy with his selections, especially in his moscato paired with his cake jar.
We had a cheese plate and I’m pleased with the partnership with the Cheese Traveler. The chèvre was a bit salty and I really liked that. Everything else was yummy. We also split a steak on a stick and that was done well too. Nothing on the menu is particularly imaginative, but everything we had was great and we saw lots of other great options. Besides, is the Delmar palate really that adventurous? These well established folks know who they are serving.
One small complaint: it got hotter as people began to fill the dining area up. However, the place still has a lot of charm, the tables are from reclaimed wood, and the staff is really nice. As a patron of Perfect Blend, my favorite staff greeted me warmly at dinner tonight.
Can’t wait for fall, when I drink reds and crave French fries!

This place gets 5 stars for service, convenience, and wine selection. If we had gone primarily for food, it might get 4 stars, but even the food here is quite solid. No surprise, given that the owners also have a good coffee shop (Perfect Blend) and bakery (Cake Next Door) in their repertoire.
We showed up on a Saturday evening around 6 — it was a little over half full. We each ordered a wine — I got a nice French rosé and Lauren ended up with a Finger Lakes Riesling. I chose the French rosé over the Spanish garnacha rosé on the server’s recommendation and I was really pleased. My second glass was another French, this time a Chardonnay. This one stood up really well to my food choices.
Speaking of food, I started with the pâté and was impressed. We also split the fried green tomatoes caprese — topped with mozzarella, arugula, and basil pesto. Being from the South, we know good fried green tomatoes — these are the real deal. Very good. For the main courses, I got the fish tacos and Lauren got the veggie skewers. As with most veggie skewers, the red onions were a little undercooked, but the balsamic reduction was tasty. The fish tacos could’ve used a squeeze of lime, but I’m sure I could’ve asked for one — it just didn’t occur to me at the time.
We ended with some desserts — I went with the peanut butter cup cake in a jar. Wow. I want a bigger jar! Lauren got the flourless chocolate cake with raspberry sauce. I tried it — chocolate is never really my thing, but the raspberry sauce made that dish (for me — I’m sure Lauren would’ve been fine with just the chocolate!).
They also have a great outdoors space and a solid, curated little list of draft and bottled beers. I glanced at the wine bottle list, but really, with glasses available, I wasn’t too keen on that. They appeared to have some nicer, more expensive options available by the bottle, though.
All in all, I’m interested to see what happens with this place. We were told the upstairs space may become something in the not-​too-​distant future, so that should be interesting. We’ll be back to check it out again!

I understand its just opened and details are still being worked out. A few observations: The high top tables of six are so poorly utilized as to wonder why you installed them? Couples were being sat at these tables wasting four potential diners spots. Observed two women being seated at a table for six only to have a glass of wine each and sit for over an hour talking, as the bar grew two thick of people waiting to be seated. May I suggest you either use those tables as communal tables, meaning several parties are sat together to utilize the space or remove them and put in two and four tops? Secondly, the lack of Air conditioning was uncomfortable. The waitress said it was being worked on for weeks and still it wasn’t working properly. Service was fine, took some time to get wine as the bar was busy, perhaps a second bartender? Food: Unfortunately nothing special. The skewers were difficult to remove from the well skewers and were basic. The French fries had nice dipping sauces but the fries themselves were soft and limp. Pork belly was ok, again nothing special, kind of reminiscent of a barbeque rib. Other options were uninspiring. Hasn’t the Charcuterie train left the station yet? Crudite was another option, again uninspired. Fish tacos, blah, crab cakes, blah. Our group had desserts. The crème brulee was good except it had no brulee. No sugar to crack and enjoy, which is the best part. The cake in a jar is a cupcake in a jar. Its fine but again it’s just fine. So hope they decide to up their game.

«As good as it gets»? I think it’s close — I would not argue with a 4* rating — but yes, I think so. The bar for a Capital Region wine bar has been raised enormously in the past year or so, with Troy’s Charles Lucas Confectionery leading the pack: we’re enormous fans of the Confectionery, so that’s the benchmark.
On the other hand, we live 5 min from the Twisted Vine — which opened July 8, 2015 — as opposed to ~30 min from Troy. That’s a big advantage — so bear that bias in mind.
So what’s good? The most obvious, maybe, is the market need: there’s nothing comparable in the area, with the closest both geographically and market-​wise being Swifty’s, across the road: that’s a perfectly decent mid-​range family restaurant, but the Twisted Vine is aiming at a more refined palate (and to be fair, less family-​focussed, although our 6 year-​old came with us not only without any problem but to be greeted by one of his favorite teachers spending the summer as a waitress there!). Food selection is limited but careful; the choices we made rained from ‘good but innocuous’ (the calamari) through ‘excellent’ (pork belly) to ‘really splendid’ (sliders, steak skewers — the fig sauce is a delight and the meat was thick, juicy, perfectly cooked, really a surprise — and cheese plate). That last deserves special note: Eric Paul of the Cheese Traveller has organized their list and was on hand to check that staff were informed and customers were happy: both were true, although the staff are (unsurprisingly) still working on memorizing all aspects of the food & drink. We chose three cheeses and _​each_​of them was outstanding, with the highlight of the whole plate being a pimento honey that Eric chose to accompany a raw milk manchego, a fabulous combination. So food is a hit, and each dish was a bit more substantive (to advantage) than might be the base at another small-​plate joint.
Drinks: there’s a decent list of wine by both bottle and glass, avoiding beaten-​track choices. The two red blends we tried were both new to us and solid choices, nuanced and smooth for ~$ 9. Beers are a little more limited but really pretty good, with I think 6 on tap and maybe another ten or so in bottles, all worthwhile even if there’s no Belgian dubbed or triple (my own preference) available — closest was an excellent lambic with cherry added to a belgian ale, so I was not unhappy. I’d rate both food and drink selections as well into the upper end of wine bars.
And the venue itself? Location is simultaneously excellent (just off the local center, adjacent to the owners’ other businesses (coffee bar, cake shop) and hence walkable for many local residents) and a little close to the street — the patio is great but right there on the sidewalk. Traffic is pretty low, so not a real issue. And the inside is fairly small — happily crowded on our visit, but rather noisy as a consequence; we were much happier to be outside. Décor is fine, neither outstanding nor irritating: a perfectly fine backdrop.
On its own merits, maybe a 4*? Maybe — but this is now instantly our local favorite place :-). Thanks, guys — glad you’re here.
[No website yet that I could find, but their Facebook is