Red or White Wine & Gourmet Center

Red or White Wine & Gourmet Center holds down a corner of downtown Fairhope at 323 De La Mar Avenue, where an ever-changing lineup of wine sits alongside a small kitchen turning out pizzas, cheese boards, and appetizers built for lingering over a glass. The Fairhope shop is part of a small regional group, but it keeps its own rhythm, built around by-the-glass tastings and a food menu that leans into what pairs well rather than what is trendy.

The wine program favors what the shop describes as American and International Artisan Producers over mass-market labels, and the open bottles turn over often enough that a regular could stop in twice in a month and find a noticeably different lineup each time. More than a dozen wines are typically uncorked and available at any given moment, poured either as a full glass or a two-ounce taste, which makes the shop a low-pressure place to sample something unfamiliar before deciding whether it is worth a bottle to take home.

Food service is intentionally compact. Handmade pizzas, stretched to a 10-inch size and built to order, come out of the kitchen alongside artisan cheese boards meant for sharing. Appetizers lean savory and a little indulgent: Benton’s bacon-wrapped dates, spiced candied pecans, and a Mediterranean white bean dish built for scooping round out a small-plates list designed to keep the table full without overwhelming the wine.

Food service runs Tuesday through Saturday from 3 to 8 p.m., layered inside the shop’s broader retail hours of 10:30 a.m. to 8 p.m. those same days. Monday is retail only, open from 10:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. with no kitchen service, and the shop is closed entirely on Sunday. Anyone planning a visit around dinner should note the narrower food window rather than the full retail hours.

Dine-in, to-go, and curbside service are all offered, and online ordering is available for anyone who would rather skip the wait and pick up a pizza or a bottle on the way home. Larger groups are accommodated with reservations for parties of eight or more, though at the Fairhope location that seating is limited to the back table, so calling ahead matters more here than at a typical restaurant. The shop can be reached directly at (251) 990-0003.

Daily specials are promoted mostly through social channels rather than posted on a static menu, with the shop maintaining an active presence on Instagram at @redorwhitefairhope and on Facebook. A mailing list is also available for anyone who wants updates on new arrivals, tasting events, and recipes tied to whatever is currently being poured, which suits a shop whose inventory is designed to keep moving rather than sit static on the shelf.

What sets the Fairhope shop apart from a standard bottle shop is the willingness to let customers taste before they buy, paired with a kitchen that treats food as a genuine part of the experience rather than an afterthought. The combination of a rotating artisan wine list, a tight and well-considered appetizer menu, and flexible service options makes it as workable for a quick after-work glass as it is for a slower evening built around a shared pizza and a cheese board split between friends.

Because the by-the-glass list changes so frequently, staff tend to talk customers through what is currently open rather than hand over a printed sheet and walk away, which suits shoppers who are curious but not necessarily fluent in wine terminology. That approach also means the shop functions as something of a discovery stop along the Eastern Shore, introducing drinkers to producers they would be unlikely to stumble across on a supermarket shelf.

The pairing of pizza and wine is a deliberate one. A 10-inch crust is small enough to finish over a couple of glasses without turning into a full meal that overwhelms the tasting, and the cheese boards are built with the same logic, mixing textures and intensities so that whatever is being poured has something on the table to match it.

Curbside pickup adds a practical option for anyone stopping through downtown Fairhope on a tight schedule, whether that means grabbing a bottle before a dinner party elsewhere or picking up a pizza to eat at home. Between the retail hours, the food service window, and the ability to order ahead online, the shop serves both the browser looking to spend an hour tasting through the open bottles and the regular who already knows exactly what to grab on the way out the door.