Ready for an afternoon catch-up over a glass of wine, but not up for a bar? Looking for a quiet place to meet your friends downtown, but they like wine and you don’t drink alcohol? Feeling like a pot of tea and a good book on a rainy afternoon, but need to get out of the house?
Welcome to Ethos Wine and Tea.
This new spot on West Main, in the space that Guajiros Miami Eatery just vacated for its new joint on 10th Street, is a lovely mixture of congenial and Zen. As you walk in, you can look over the bookcase of wines and snacks for sale, as well as some used books for sampling. You can step up to the small curved wine bar, or find your table along the window or out on the patio—two-tops for intimate conversations, moveable for grouping. There’s a small menu of snacks, sandwiches, and sweets to help your energy match your conversation.
Ethos Wine and Tea is the joint venture of two people with different backgrounds but like minds. Kylie Britt turned her degree in chemistry into a career in wine (which fits, if you think of winemaking as a chemical experiment) via the lab at Michael Shaps Wineworks and a stint as wine director at The Wool Factory. Tiffany Nguyen, who came to Charlottesville 16 years ago, juggled work in event-planning with raising four children (another form of event-planning, actually).
From different directions, Britt and Nguyen had developed an interest in building community through offering a gathering place. Britt says her growing desire to educate people about wines “got me dreaming of creating something more wine- and beverage-focused.” Nguyen discovered that her event skills were based on “wanting to gather people in a welcoming space—but I wasn’t ready to start a venture all on my own.” Then fate, in the shape of Charlottesville’s small-town network, stepped in.
At last year’s Two Up, Wine Down Festival celebrating Virginia wines and winemakers, self-confessed foodie Nguyen was chatting with friends who happened to know Britt and her dreams of starting a wine-focused café. The two started talking, one idea led to another, and by January 2024 the concept for Ethos was born. Through July and August, co-owners Britt and Nguyen eased into operation—opening a few days a week while they recruited staff and refined their offerings. By late summer, the spot was fully launched.
Britt, as wine and operations director, handles wine and staffing. The wine menu covers the full range (sparkling, white, rosé, red) and Britt plans to rotate the offerings about every six weeks. “I go for local, natural, and innovative wines,” she says. “I’m not super strict about organic, but I need the wine to be both good and good for the Earth.” She’s a fan of Virginia wines, obviously, but also particularly devoted to wines from the Shenandoah Valley … “or southwest France. I’m up for any wine with a good story.” (And to be inclusive, Ethos does carry a selection of draft and canned beers and sake).
The Ethos website describes Nguyen as “wearer of all hats.” While she enjoys wine, “I never knew that much about it,” she admits, but when she and Britt got talking about creating a gathering place, “I thought, ‘Why not tea?’ It’s a high-quality product, it’s complex, and [enjoying it] is a communal experience—something you can share.” Her tea menu will not rotate as often as Britt’s wines—tea is less seasonal than wine—but she will always offer a mix of black, green, herbal, and iced. “I’m keeping an eye out for local teas, which would mostly be herbal,” Nguyen says, but she will also offer locally produced kombuchas and sodas. And for the adventurous, there’s also brined plum soda, a Philippine specialty (“my family loves it,” she says)—refreshing, but definitely for those who have a taste for salty.
The foods menu offers snacks (nuts, olives, bread and butter) for noshing with your beverage, sweets from Splendora’s, and a mix of sandwiches for heartier appetites. Britt wants to feature local suppliers where possible, and she also plans to offer their kitchen for pop-ups from local chefs (“a kind of incubator”). Eventually, she says, they want to offer the upstairs rooms as a space for private events.
Both owners keep coming back to their vision of Ethos as a community space. “This is a place for coming together,” says Britt, “whether it’s two friends or a date or a family, before dinner or after a movie or just an afternoon together.” Nguyen says it another way: “I’ve always wanted to gather people. When you walk in here, I want you to feel welcome.”