Uncorked

Last month in this column, I wrote about the sad fate of Caliente, the Cuban restaurant that developer Kerry Duffin and chef Peter Castillo had completed in the Crossroads District. Duffin hadn’t secured enough parking spaces near the 103-year-old building at 103 West 19th Street, and the Board of Zoning Adjustment declined to hear Duffin’s second application for a parking variance on October 25. That leaves Caliente’s future up in the air.

Back on solid ground, another new business in that downtown neighborhood is moving forward. Veteran restaurant manager Ryan Sciara is in the process of creating an upscale wine shop at 1701 Baltimore, tentatively slated to open in March. That’s the same location where a trio of fledgling restaurateurs — chef Antonio Brocato, Kristen Lamorie and Ashley Williamson — had hoped to open their own 50-seat dining room two years ago (“Foreign Affairs,” February 20, 2003). The grand plans for that venue collapsed along with the partnership. The building continued to sit empty until this year, when owner Brad Nicholson divided it up and leased the south side of the space to the Urban Living Center.

But any real urban living requires a fancy vino shop, right? That’s why 33-year-old Sciara, whose résumé includes management stints at Teller’s in Lawrence and 40 Sardines in Overland Park, is eager to start construction. Sciara and partner John Opelka will sell fine wines, artisan cheeses and other upscale food items at the store.

Sciara believes this increasingly residential Crossroads neighborhood, thanks to a plethora of lofts, is ready for a place where customers can buy a bottle of imported olive oil and shell out a few hundred bucks for a 1998 Cheval Blanc. “Some people say I’m a little ahead of my time for this location,” Sciara admits. “But I’d rather be ahead of the curve than too late.”

The original plan was to name the store Urban Cork, but the two partners decided that they liked Cellar Rat Wine Merchant better. “A cellar rat isn’t a rodent,” Sciara explains. “It’s the term for the behind-the-scenes person at a winery. Sometimes he’s an assistant to the winemaker. Sometimes it’s the guy who cleans the wine barrels and the fermenting tanks. But it’s always someone who knows a lot about wine.”

Sciara knows quite a bit about good vintages himself, so he’ll be the head rat in the cellar. It’s quite a change from the career he had planned. “I graduated from Washburn University with a degree in criminal justice,” Sciara says. “I guess I could have gone into the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. But I like selling wine instead.”