The crowd at Winebar's opening last Thursday night.

By Lenn Thompson, Executive Editor

When Theresa Dilworth closed The Tasting Room on Peconic Lane, some wondered where they'd be able to taste and buy wines from producers like Bouke Wines and Scarola Vineyards — small wineries without tasting rooms of their own.

Winebar, which opened last week at The Portly Grape in Greenport, will serve as the primary tasting location for those producers. Dilworth's own wines, under the Comtesse Therese label, will also be featured there.

Run by Mark Anderson and Andrew Mestler, who you may know from Bedell Vineyards, the new tasting room-meets-wine bar features wine tasting flights from Bouke, Comtesse Therese and Scarola Vineyards.

This isn't just a tasting room however. Wine tastings can be accompanied by a food tasting menu that includes a roasted pear and goat cheese salad, pan seared scallops, oysters, smoked Crescent Duck breast, beef tenderloin, ahi tuna, and aged New York sirloin — all prepared by Chef Mark Sorrentino in The Portly Grape's restaurant kitchen.

Winebar is, well, a wine bar as well. As such it will offer wines by the glass and by the bottle from a variety of North Fork vineyards. Local beers from Greenport Harbor are also available — making it the perfect wine country destination for wine lovers who either love a beer at the end of a day of wine tasting or, like me, have good friends who just don't like wine.

Winebar is open daily from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m.