Wine Bars in Asheville: A Glass and a Bite

A glass of wine in Asheville can come with a seat by the street, a table among used books or a garden setting away from downtown. Choose the setting and the food together: 5 Walnut Wine Bar suits Cava and a shared board, while Battery Park Book Exchange & Champagne Bar puts champagne among books in the Grove Arcade.

Botanist & Barrel offers rotating flights, Cork and Keg pairs wine with changing cheeses, and Leo’s House of Thirst gives you a reason to head to West Asheville. These are seated stops for a drink with a bite, with a Sunday pasta option when you want a fuller meal.

Choose a wine stop

Wine stop	Area	Order	Typical spend per person	Weekly closing day
5 Walnut	Downtown, West Walnut	Cava + Cheese & Meat Board	$20–30, glass + half a shared board	None
Battery Park	Downtown, Grove Arcade	Champagne + The Secret Life of Charcuterie	$30–45, glass + half a shared board	Tuesday
Botanist & Barrel	Downtown, Broadway	Rotating wine flight + tinned fish	$30–45, flight + fish	None
Cork and Keg	Downtown, Patton Avenue	Wine + changing cheese plate	$20–30, glass + half a shared plate	Monday
Leo’s	West Asheville, Haywood Road	Wine + tartine to look for	$25–40, glass + open-faced sandwich	None

Choose a flight if you want several small pours rather than one glass. Boards, cheese plates and tinned fish make a snack occasion, not necessarily dinner. For a fuller meal, Leo’s has its Sunday Pasta Dinner. For a meal for two, romantic dinner restaurants in Asheville gives you a separate selection.

The first four stops form a downtown cluster. Treat Leo’s on Haywood Road as a separate West Asheville outing. Where reservations are offered, arrange seats together and specify drinks, food or both. Choose indoor seats when weather matters, and leave time to enjoy the wine.

5 Walnut Wine Bar

5 Walnut Wine Bar’s street-facing window seats make this a place to sit with Cava and watch the passing street. The seating is for drinking on the premises, so you can settle in with food rather than just picking up a bottle. Wine is served daily from the afternoon, and in fine weather the windows may be open.

The Cheese & Meat Board brings together aged white cheddar, brie and salami. Lusty Monk mustard and pepper jelly accompany it, with a choice of potato chips or gluten-free crackers and pickles or olives. Share the board if you want a bite alongside your sparkling wine. The mustard and jelly let you vary each mouthful without ordering a second dish.

The by-the-glass selection extends beyond Cava to Prosecco and sparkling rosé. For a still white, examples include unoaked Chardonnay, Riesling and Vermentino. Gamay rosé and Montepulciano red give you alternatives if sparkling wine is not what you feel like drinking. Choose the style you want first, then order a glass to accompany the board.

Battery Park Book Exchange & Champagne Bar

Battery Park Book Exchange & Champagne Bar gives a seated drink an unusual backdrop: tables and seats are woven among the shelves of a used-book shop. You drink your champagne within that book-filled setting, not in a separate bar room. Choose it when the surroundings matter as much as the glass.

Order The Secret Life of Charcuterie with your champagne for a shared snack. The named board belongs to a menu that also includes A Tale of Two Choices, so the bookish theme carries into the food order. Charcuterie means cured meats, and a shared board makes sense for a pause over drinks rather than a substantial dinner.

The Grove Arcade puts this stop within a downtown shopping building, which makes it easy to combine browsing with a seated break. Allow the bookshop setting to shape the occasion: a table, a drink and a board to share, rather than a quick standing pour.

Botanist & Barrel Tasting Bar + Bottle Shop

Botanist & Barrel Tasting Bar + Bottle Shop is the downtown choice for a rotating wine flight with tinned fish. You can take a seat at the bar or choose a small or larger table, making it suitable for tasting together as well as drinking on your own.

Curated flights cost $18–28, depending on the selection, and you can also build your own. Choose a curated flight when you want the wines selected for you, or build one around styles you would like to compare. The rotation is part of the appeal, so treat named pours as examples rather than a fixed set.

Botanist & Barrel’s own wines connect the tasting to North Carolina-grown fruit, while guest wines broaden the by-the-glass list. Examples include DeFi Mourvèdre Red, Chalmers Montevecchio Rosso Blend and Old Westminster Raw Rosé. These give you alternatives to a flight if you prefer to spend the visit with one wine.

Alongside tinned fish, the food includes local cheese and charcuterie boards and other local snacks. Outside food is allowed, which gives you a way to bring something more substantial while keeping the wine tasting as the reason for the stop. The Broadway location makes this a downtown sit-down tasting rather than an outing to the producer’s farm.

Weinhaus / Cork and Keg Bar

Cork and Keg Bar pairs a glass of wine with a cheese plate whose selection changes frequently. It is the on-premises bar inside Weinhaus, so choose the bar for a seated drink rather than treating a bottle bought in the shop as the same occasion.

Weinhaus was founded in 1977 by Dave Mallett. His son Hunt owns the family-run business, and Hunt’s son John also works there. That continuing family connection gives the wine-shop bar its particular identity. Order the changing cheese plate for a simple accompaniment rather than arriving with a specific cheese in mind.

Tuesday–Thursday wine service

10am–7pm, subject to change with travelling musicians

Friday–Saturday wine service

10am–10:30pm

Sunday wine service

Noon–6pm

Leo’s House of Thirst

Leo’s House of Thirst is worth a separate Haywood Road outing for wine with a bite in the garden. It offers seated wine service in West Asheville, with garden seats giving you an outdoor setting for your drink.

A tartine, an open-faced sandwich, is the food to look for with your wine rather than a particular topping to plan around. Choose it for a lighter occasion when you want something to eat alongside the drink without making the evening a full dinner.

Sunday Pasta Dinner is the fuller-meal alternative. The sample menu describes Caesar salad, pasta and a sundae for $35, before your wine, tax and tip. That combination takes you from a snack to a meal with dessert, and its Sunday scope matters when choosing the evening.

Wine accompanies dinner every night. Monday’s dinner is separately named Leoni’s. For an evening visit, dinner service runs 4pm–9:30pm.

Sources & fact-checking

Checks against the sources below cover: opening hours and key figures.

• LEO’S House of Thirst — opening hours
• LEO’S House of Thirst — key figures
• Cork & Keg Asheville — opening hours
• The Weinhaus — key figures
• Weinhaus — key figures
• 5 Walnut Wine Bar — opening hours
• 5 Walnut Wine Bar — key figures
• Battery Park Book Exchange & Champagne Bar — opening hours
• Battery Park Book Exchange & Champagne Bar — key figures
• Botanist & Barrel — opening hours
• Botanist & Barrel — key figures