AJ's Fine Foods

Walking into a grocery store and finding Pieropan Soave Classico and Cantina di Venosa Malvasia on the shelf for under fifteen bucks is the kind of thing that makes you do a double take. AJ's isn't a restaurant in the traditional sense — it's a market — but their curated wine section plays well above its weight class. This is not the Kendall-Jackson-and-call-it-a-day situation you're expecting.

The 41-label list skews heavily white and sparkling, which makes sense for a Phoenix-area market where people are sweating nine months out of the year. What impresses us is the geographic range: you've got Sicilian Grillo, Greek Moschofilero, Abruzzo Pecorino, New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc, Bordeaux Blanc, and a Viognier from the Rhône alongside the expected Pinot Grigio crowd-pleasers. Gruet Blanc de Noirs from New Mexico adds a local-ish sparkling option that most bottle shops overlook. The gaps are real — reds are conspicuously absent from what's listed here, and by-the-glass options are unclear — but for a market wine program, this is genuinely interesting curation.

AJ's is a bottle shop format, so by-the-glass service isn't really the point here — you're buying to take home or crack open nearby. Without confirmed pour options, we can't score the glass program, but at these prices, buying a bottle feels like what most restaurants would charge you for two glasses anyway.