Appellation Wine & Spirits (CLOSED)

Today, locavores can find plenty of eco-friendly vino to pair with their Greenmarket eats. It wasn't so when Scott Pactor—a finance guy turned assistant wine director at Balthazar—opened the city's first natural-wine-focused store in 2005. Pactor felt these offerings better reflected terroir, as their production included a minimal amount of human interference (added sulfites, pesticides, etc.). Since Pactor first stocked his shelves with green producers, a number of wine stores (such as Natural Wine Co.) and bars (Ten Bells and the Tangled Vine among them) have followed his lead. But you can still pop into this airy pioneering Chelsea storefront, which offers an inventory of mostly organic, sustainable and biodynamic wines.