The soaring Himalayan peaks of Bhutan may seem to have little in common with the concrete streets of the Bronx, but both locales are staking their claim in the wine world at long last.
Neither the Silk Road nor the Romans ever made it to Bhutan, but American entrepreneurs Ann Cross and Mike Juergens, founders of the Bhutan Wine Company, did. The country’s rich history of subsistence farming spans thousands of years, but the Bhutan Wine Company planted the Kingdom’s first vines in 2019.
Cross became enamored with the idea of visiting Bhutan as a teenager: “I basically had it on my bucket list as the number-one place I wanted to visit,” she says. After years of hearing Cross speak longingly about it, in 2017, Juergens signed up to run a marathon in the Himalayas and surprised his partner with her dream getaway. “We certainly didn’t go there with the intent of starting a wine industry,” he says. But he observed that “the place looks and feels like a wine region, with terraces, slopes, and beautiful crops everywhere you look; all the fruit that you eat tastes amazing.” Juergens, a Certified Sommelier and MW candidate, kept asking everyone, “Where are the vineyards? Where are the wineries?”
He convinced key government officials that Bhutan’s status as the planet’s first carbon-negative country as well as its pure water, lack of smog, and biodiversity positioned it for viticultural success. Today, the Bhutan Wine Company oversees vineyards throughout the Kingdom at elevations of 500–9,150 feet, planting a wide range of varieties such as Syrah, Pinot Noir, Cabernet Sauvignon, Grenache, Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay, Petit Manseng, and Riesling. The Bhutan Wine Company’s impressive advisory board includes world-renowned wine writer Jancis Robinson, MW. In 2024, the producer had its first commercial harvest; the forthcoming wines will be bottled under the brand name Ser Kem, a term that represents an offering of alcohol to the gods.
Traveling to the Boogie Down Bronx, the birthplace of hip-hop and home of the New York Yankees, is logistically less daunting than a trip to Bhutan; even so, some people can’t make the mental leap to envision the borough as anything more than a symbol of urban blight. Yet a recent wave of upscale residential construction has attracted newcomers to the Bronx—and they want access to quality wine. Rita Bernard and Ramón Delmonte are answering the call for them as well as for longtime residents. In autumn 2024, the couple opened the doors to the Bronx Wine Co. in the Mott Haven neighborhood. Their children, Devon and Catherine, have joined them in this new venture.
Ramón started his wine career in the 1980s as a stock boy and worked his way up the ranks before starting his own importing company about 20 years ago. His wife, Rita, on the brink of retiring from a long career in New York’s public school system, broached the idea of opening a wine shop. That vision has come to fruition on The Grand Concourse, which Ramón describes as “the single most important avenue in the Bronx.”
The Bronx Wine Co. disrupts the narrative that there’s no place for a quality wine shop in a historically underserved community. “We’ve had people come in and say to us, ‘What a beautiful store. This looks so out of place. This should be downtown.’ And we say, ‘Listen, we’re from the Bronx, and we’re bringing downtown to the Bronx,’” Ramón adds. The inventory focuses on organic, vegan, biodynamic, and sustainable wines from family-owned producers, women, and people of color.
Be it in Bhutan or the Bronx, wine finds a way.
Wanda Mann is a Certified Specialist
of Wine and the founder of
winewithwanda.com. Follow her on
Instagram @winedinewanda.