Oenophiles benefit from Tony Bommarito’s passion for wine

I’ve had the great pleasure of knowing Tony Bommarito for more than 15 years, and I’ve always wondered why someone so esteemed as a restaurateur would close the doors and get into the wine business, a business that Bommarito has always freely admitted he originally knew very little about. The story begins just after World War II, when Tony’s first opened on the north side of downtown St. Louis. It created two local restaurant superstars: Vince and Tony Bommarito. While older brother Vince managed Tony’s, the younger Tony went off to New York City to learn the restaurant business at the famed 21 Club, which boasted a world-class wine program. That experience gave him the desire to bring greater wines to our region. At that time, there was very little European wine available in St. Louis, but Bommarito was convinced that we could support a higher level of wine awareness. So when he returned to St. Louis to help his brother run the restaurant, he set about expanding the restaurant’s cellar. Over the years, the restaurant and the wine list grew, and in 1972 the brothers decided to open a second location downtown. The new restaurant was named Anthony’s, and soon it too had earned a stellar local reputation. Two locations allowed for a greater commitment to wine – and attracted more attention from wineries eager to work with the Bommarito brothers to elevate their wines. Life was great until the plans to build a domed stadium, which would occupy the same soil as Tony’s, became a reality. The logical thing to do was to move Tony’s to Anthony’s venue and move Anthony’s to a new home, but Bommarito was never able to find a suitable location for the second restaurant. This meant the space so loved as Anthony’s became the new Tony’s, and Anthony’s was simply no more. With his restaurant closed, Bommarito decided to tackle the challenge of getting the world’s great wines to local restaurants. Passionate about bringing the very best wines to St. Louis, he began the task of obtaining suppliers, contacting importers and working his contacts with wholesalers in town. Vinifera Imports, an importer of some of the best Italian wines, was Bommarito’s first supplier. Robert Chadderdon, importer of some premium European wines, was next to join the stable, and trips to California wine country resulted in further high-quality products. “My food background also really helped me connect with people,” Bommarito explained. He filled his warehouse with stellar wines and, in 1992, opened for business with a warehouse tasting. The power of the Bommarito name brought out every restaurateur and wine retailer in town, all curious to see what A. Bommarito Wines was all about. The new company made plenty of good impressions that first day. At Bommarito’s insistence, the wine storage was impeccable – floors as clean as a kitchen and wine cases stacked in military precision – and the tasting featured a wheel of Parmigiano-Reggiano with great Italian bread. It was the simplest and most elegant wine tasting I had ever experienced. I had my own wine shop at the time called Wine Cellar, and at the end of the tasting, I was privileged to be invoice No. 00001, A. Bommarito Wines’ very first customer. Tony has now expanded his warehouse for the third time, but continues to claim: “I still don’t know that much about wine, but I know a lot about people. That is still how I deal with wine. I trust good people to make good wine.”