Sour grapes: Broadway tasting room Aluel Cellars closing after 10 years citing Capitol Hill ‘business climate’

(Image: Aluel Cellars)

Ten years can be a lifetime for a small business. Not coincidentally, many factors of a commercial lease can sum to a decade.

On E Thomas, the math is adding up for Aluel Cellars, an urban tasting room and direct to consumer wine business born 10 years ago on Capitol Hill that is preparing to move on from the neighborhood where it started.

Here is the announcement from owners Alex Oh and Samuel Hilbert:

Pride has always been a special time at our Capitol Hill tasting room. Seeing wine club members, friends, neighbors, and new guests fill the space is what made this place feel like home. Capitol Hill has meant so much to me as our first location and the heart of Seattle’s queer community. This year’s Pride was our last at this location. After 10 years, we’ve made the difficult decision not to renew our lease.

In the announcement, the wine entrepreneurs laid the blame for the tasting room’s shutdown not on the weather among the vineyards of Walla Walla or Yakima but on the “business climate” of Capitol Hill.

“For the past five years I’ve worked to improve the business climate in Capitol Hill because I believed in this neighborhood’s recovery,” Hilbert writes. “Despite encouraging signs, rising costs, public safety challenges, and lower foot traffic have made it impossible for this location to succeed financially.”

The couple launched Aluel as business and life partners — the company’s name literally combines their two first names — on the street level of the then-new E Thomas development just off Broadway in late 2016 featuring  the creations of SoDo winemaker Bart Fawbush of Bartholomew Winery under their own label.

Aluel has an asset-light production model common among urban wineries. Rather than owning and maintaining expensive estate vineyards requiring massive capital expenditure, they focus on enology, viticulture, and cellaring, securing long-term relationships with premier growers across Washington.

It is an urban experience. Rather than locating in traditional Washington wine regions like Woodinville, Walla Walla, or the Yakima Valley, the founders built the brand around bringing the wine country to Seattle.

Aluel will live on with its tasting rooms in Queen Anne and Ballard. Its final day of business on Capitol Hill is planned for July 10th.

Aluel is the second wine-y closure on Capitol Hill in 2026. Earlier this year, wine bar Light Sleeper exited Chophouse Row to make way for Sea’d In, the latest restaurant project from prolific food and drink entrepreneur Heong Soon Park..

Meanwhile, Capitol Hill wine lovers have bounteous options that have ripened over the past decade.

While some like Eaglemount’s taproom have come and gone, others like Otherworld Wine Bar at the top of Pike/Pine and the 2019-born La Dive natural wine bar from Kate Opatz are thriving.

(Image: Aluel Cellars)

Self-pour wine bar Nomadic Wine Dispensary got a re-start in 2025 on North Broadway, and Flight Wine + Chocolate celebrated its fifth anniversary this year at 13th and Pike.

For wine love by the bottle, drag star Howard Russell opened La Cha-Bliss on 12th Ave in 2025, and The Shop Agora Mediterranean food and wine shop passed the torch to new ownership also in 2025 as it continues in its 15th year of business.

Capitol Hill wine shop granddaddy European Vine Selections provides a foundation for them all. The 15th Ave E wine shop marked 50 years on Capitol Hill in 2022. “Our mission is not necessarily to make the most money out of the shop, but we think of ourselves as a kind of public institution,” co-owner Tarik Burney told CHS back then. “We’ve been in business now for 50 years and we’re trying to give the most value to people.”

For Aluel, Oh and Hilbert say they won’t be leaving all this Capitol Hill wine love behind with hopes of returning to the neighborhood for pop-ups and events. You can also find Aluel bottles on the shelf at La Cha-Bliss.

Aluel Cellars will close in July at 801 E Thomas. Learn more at aluelcellars.com.

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