Santé Wine Tasting Room

Santé was supposed to be a pit stop. We ducked into this downtown Farmington wine tasting room on a Friday before meeting family for dinner, and it very nearly became the evening’s main event. The room is cozy in the best way — brick walls, deep booths, lantern light, and a floor-to-ceiling wall of wine doing most of the decorating — and entirely too easy to settle into.

The fun is in the exploring. Self-pour stations line that wall, stocked with a rotating lineup you pay for by the ounce, so you can try a splash of this and a taste of that without committing to a full glass of anything. Rather be served? Bubbles and cocktails come from behind the bar. We ordered the baked Brie, and they brought out a bowl of the plumpest grapes, too — just-right nibbles for a little sipping, and exactly the kind of small gesture that talks you into one more pour.

Had our dinner reservation not been calling, we’d have happily stayed put. It’s a natural for a date, a catch-up with friends, or the start of a downtown Farmington evening. Our advice: leave yourself more time than we did.