Alyssa Lisle is out to crush the norms around wine.

Lisle opened Lucy’s Bottle Shop in January in a nondescript midcentury warehouse at 23rd Avenue West and Emerson Street — the newest addition to a nameless little micro-neighborhood to the west of Fisherman’s Terminal, just around the corner from Figurehead Brewing. Its mission behind opening Lucy’s, Lisle says, is to exclusively sell and promote wines made by women, BIPOC, and queer winemakers — the unsung wine heroes of the industry.

The wine industry has traditionally been controlled overwhelmingly by straight white men, who often gatekeep the craft so that only a select few get to reap its booming profits. Unsurprisingly, when it comes to owning wineries or even having enough access to a vineyard to learn the trade, it takes a lot of cash to buy in, and that’s where marginalized people don’t always get the chance to play. Approximately 1% of American wineries are Black-owned, for example, and that number plummets outside of the U.S. Women, meanwhile, make up just 14% of winemakers (that number was 10% in 1890) and 38% of winery owners, statistics that have slowly grown over the ages but certainly still need more representation.

The long, skinny warehouse that Lucy’s inhabits was a CrossFit gym for the last decade or so, and it initially seems like a weird spot for this type of business. But step inside, and you realize that the layout, in fact, lends itself very well to a bar and bottle shop. The office in front serves as the wine shop, full of glass-door coolers and pretty bottle displays, and the wine bar lives in the open, airy space in back. It’s a friendly, chummy vibe back there, and folks all seem to know each other.

On the walls is colorful work by LGBTQ+ artists, displayed courtesy of Fishbowl Gallery on Lower Queen Anne. Nestled among the bottles on the bright yellow shelves there’s more art, alongside bags of fancy imported snacks, all for sale. On the menu, alongside grab-and-go food from queer-owned Baskette in Fremont, there’s a curated menu of single pours and themed tasting flights for different palates.

Open for only a few months, Lucy’s already has a rep as a dog-friendly bar, so if the clientele doesn’t already know each other, they’re going to shortly, once their pups insist upon it. The wine helps, too.

“There’s so much to know about wine,” Lisle says, “so I try to offer accessibility and keep things approachable, and lots of diversity among each style of wine.”

The shop has a variety of wines, from $18 bottles to $90 bottles. Perusing the shelves, it’s cool to see a cabernet from Mexico on the shelf next to a French cab, or to see a rosé made by a Punjabi- and Black-owned winery, Saanj, right here in Seattle.

There are wines you might be unfamiliar with — for me, it was Lebnani, a natural wine available in white (abyad) or red (ahmar) from Mersel Wines, based in Lebanon. Lisle happens to have a bottle of the red Lebnani open and includes it in my flight of natural wines — it’s got cherry–strawberry notes, smoky with a little licorice. Really lovely.

Originally from Chicago, Lisle has a background as a chef, most recently at Harry’s Fine Foods in Seattle, and for a decade prior in Los Angeles.

“I worked in fine dining, originally for (chef and restaurateur) Thomas Keller, so I was dealing in wine pairings, wine dinners, coursed dinners, and I was having to taste things to figure out which flavor profile goes with which wine,” Lisle says. “Having started cooking professionally when she was 15 years old, she later took an internship in Paris, “to get some chops under Michelin-starred chefs and see what that world was like,” where her love for wine bloomed further.

Lisle herself, by the way, is the eponymous Lucy — she repurposed a childhood nickname for her shop. “My mom calls me “Lucy Belusi,’” Lisle laughs. “That’s actually the full nickname. Obviously, my name is Alyssa, but she’s called me Lucy since I was very young.” The shop’s name, she says, helps her feel close to her family back in Chicago.

“I think it’s really important for people to remember that, more than anything, this is a wine shop as well as a wine bar,” she says. “The wine is all good. There are no bad wines in here. They are all delicious, and I’m not doing this gimmicky thing where I’m cherry-picking winemakers who are different and saying, ‘Come try them and support them,’ for just that reason.”

At at its core, Lisle says, Lucy’s concept is a simple one.

“All of these wines are made by phenomenal artisans,” she says, gesturing around her, “who deserve to be celebrated because, first and foremost, they make fantastic wine. That’s why we’re here. To lift them up.”