Flight Wine Shop. 269 19th Ct. South, Arlington.
Just over a year after Chinatown’s popular Flight Wine Bar closed its doors, owners Swati Bose and Kabir Amir have opened a bottle shop under the same name in National Landing.
After dreaming about opening a wine shop for nearly a decade, Bose and husband Amir opened up Flight’s first iteration on the corner of Sixth and H Streets in 2014. The 60-seat wine bar specialized in its namesake themed flights, wine cocktails, and by-the-glass pours, with over 100 bottles in its arsenal. But Bose and Amir since had difficulty bouncing back from the pandemic, and ultimately shuttered Flight last year.
“We had some good months and good quarters, but we were never really able to recover,” says Bose.
Now, they’re is back— not as an intimate bar, but instead as a carefully curated shop, operated by the same Chinatown staff. Switching to a retail model, says Bose, has made some aspects of opening “more manageable.”
“When we were opening our restaurant, it was our first venture—not just together, but also in the industry,” Bose says. “It was really overwhelming and intense, but 10 years down the road, I think we’ve got much more experience.”
Spanning 2,175 square feet and located on the ground floor of Crystal City’s The Grace apartments, Flight Wine Shop will offer limited-production bottles of global wines, with a specific focus on those produced with minimal intervention. In stocking the shop, Bose and Amir said they prioritized sustainably farmed wines.
A key tenet of Flight’s stock is a vast selection of native wines, or wines made from grapes grown in their place of origin. “Wine grapes that are grown in their native place are the best expressions of those wines,” Bose says.
Back in Chinatown, the Flight crew prided itself on friendly service and a mission of making wine feel more approachable. Now, as they open their doors in Arlington, they hope to deliver the same experience through weekly tastings and discounts— as well as encouraging their customer base to ask questions about featured bottles and try new varieties.
Just like at the wine bar, Bose and Amir look forward to getting to know their clientele, both on a personal level, and in terms of their tastes in wine. Doing so, Bose says, will help them tailor their suggestions, selections, and service.
“We had someone come and say that she usually drinks a Pinot noir and likes lighter bodied wines, and one of our staff pointed her to a Sicilian red that’s not super common,” Bose says. “It’s been fun to point guests to wines that they may not have available to them on a regular basis, but are along the same flavor profiles.”
