Barsha Wine Tasting Room Manhattan Beach

Bringing the expertise of a skilled sommelier to a California beach town, Barsha is a small business with a lot to offer. It is a combination wine and beverage shop, wine bar, and dining experience that utilizes small and local craft food and drink.

Housed in a comfortable, industrial-hip room the shop offers wine, beer, and a variety of hand-crafted delights from chocolate to cheese. The tasting room serves thoughtful pours, tapas, cheese, bread, and charcuterie.

Barsha was created by the husband and wife team of Adnen and Lenora Marouani, respectively a successful Las Vegas restaurateur and a trained chef, now the tasting room’s sommelier and head chef.

Opened in 2012, Barsha has served as a focal point for craft wines and brew in the close-knit Manhattan Beach community just south of Los Angeles. A charming interior includes antiques culled from an old Ohio hardware store, reclaimed wooden barn doors, an artist-created wine bottle tree, and a brightly colored sofa.

The shop predominates in the light and airy space, but the tasting room is a welcoming gathering spot that encourages guests to try a wine or cheese and then find it to take home in the shop. Wine and beer offerings are culled from a wide-ranging, interesting list.

From a Napa Bordeaux to a Chenin Blanc from Vouvray, France, Barsha’s selections originate from distinctive and small producers worldwide. In the tasting room, a “Fireworks Flight” allows oenophiles to sip four unique wines, including Beckman Syrah from California’s Central Coast, redolent with plum and blackberry, alive with hints of chocolate and sage. Or guests can sip glasses of whites like the Quinta Do Correio Field blend, hailing from Portugal and providing wine lovers with aromatic flavors of melon and lemon. Reds on offer include Costa Duecorti Nebbiolo from Piedmont, Italy, a delightfully floral wine with hints of violets and rose petals, along with blueberry and licorice notes. Wines available for tasting are also available for sale in the shop, and through its wine club. The club provides members with two hand-selected wine selections monthly, as well as tasting room discounts.

Beers on tap are equally well-curated, including the Pharmer’s Daughter Blonde Ale from Water Brewing in Chico, Calif., made with coriander honey; and Refuge Brewery’s Blood Orange Wit. This Temecula, California brewer uses over 200 pounds of fresh blood oranges to make this tart craft brew. Along with the rotating tap beers in the tasting room, Barsha sells beer in its shop, including limited production and seasonal beers that are difficult to find elsewhere.

Barsha’s owners support small producers of wine and beer as well as craft food purveyors. Local and organic are the mainstays of small tastes such as dips and bread including fig tapenade, hummus, Tunisian olives, and Tunisian spiced almonds. The fine, small-batch cheeses available include Northern California’s Purple Haze goat cheese, made with fresh lavender and fennel pollen, and a Spanish sheep’s milk buttery Corcuera Manchego.

The name of this tasting room and shop, Barsha, has Tunisian roots like co-owner Adnen Marouani. The word translates roughly into “abundance.” It’s a good name for this spot, where an abundance of tasting choices and flavors awaits visitors.