SARATOGA SPRINGS — Joseph Grillo cut his teeth working at trendy Brooklyn wine shops, and now he’s brought his experience and sensibilities to By the Bottle, a wine store located in downtown Saratoga.
The shop was previously owned by Annmarie Guglielmo, who now works at the Kindred wine bar on Henry Street. Grillow took over By the Bottle in July of 2023. His goal is to create an unpretentious neighborhood shop where customers don’t feel intimidated by wine.
“I just want people to be at ease in the shop and ask questions,” Grillo said. “I’m more concerned with people and building a sense of community.”
By the Bottle offers a large selection of orange wines, as well as biodynamic and organic wines. The shop tends to favor smaller production bottles, hoping to offer customers a unique selection. “There are tens of thousands of wines in the world and I’m happy to represent different things, maybe things people don’t see every day,” Grillo said.
“Everything I have, other than maybe two wines, is between $12 and $40,” Grillo said. “I don’t have a lot of expensive stuff because I think that there’s so much wonderful stuff out there that you don’t have to break the bank to try.”
Grillo previously ran Northside Discount Liquors & Wine in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. He still goes there regularly to check in, but is now managing By the Bottle full time. Prior to owning Northside, he worked at Trojanowski Liquor in Williamsburg. “That’s where I learned about wine,” Grillo said.
Grillo and his wife were married in the Spa City twelve years ago, and when the pandemic hit, they decided to move their kids to Saratoga in search of a safer, gentler city. “It has a cinema, it has a beautiful book store, it has Caffe Lena, it has all these great things,” Grillo said. “I do like it up here.”
By the Bottle is located at 11 Spring Street in downtown Saratoga Springs.
