Tom Caruso '06 opens Pray Tell, a winery and wine tasting room, in Philadelphia

By Jason Sheehan

Local Winemaker Returns Home to Pour His Heart (and Wine) Into Philly

Wine From The Bear, Now in Kensington

Tom Caruso grew up in South Philly. He spent every fall helping his grandfather make wine with a hand-crank de-stemmer and a small basket press. They did small batches, made by hand, but Caruso didn’t intend on becoming a winemaker when he grew up.

He went to college in Washington, D.C., moved to New York, became a book editor. But he seemed to always be finding himself in restaurants. An interest in food grew into a deeper interest in wine. He worked a commercial harvest at an urban winery in Brooklyn, enrolled in a sommelier program and, somewhere along the way, decided that he was going to make wine his full-time gig.

He went west to California and Oregon, worked with other winemakers and then, in 2017, started his own project called Pray Tell. And that was great, but something was still itching at him.“At the beginning of my professional wine journey, a long-shot dream emerged: to produce world-class wines in my hometown of Philadelphia one day,” Caruso writes on the Pray Tell website. “Some thirteen years, thousands of miles, and many tons of grapes processed later, that dream has become a reality.”

Because quietly, almost secretly, Pray Tell opened over the weekend in Kensington, at 1615 North Hancock Street. Caruso and his partner, Sydney Adams, made the move from Oregon to Philly so Caruso could bring things full-circle — coming back to the city where he first learned about wine from his grandfather, to make his own in the same building where his mother and grandfather started their family business decades ago.

Pray Tell opened its tasting room to the public on Saturday afternoon. By all accounts, it went well. And while it looks like it’s going to be a few weeks before Pray Tell gets its shipping in order, they’re going to have the tasting room open every week, Fridays, Saturdays, Sundays and Mondays, from 2 p.m. to 7 p.m. You can get all the details you need at Pray Tell’s brand-new website or their Instagram.

Oh, and that thing about The Bear? Yeah, while you’re checking out the ‘gram, dig this: Right there, next to Richie’s head? Those are some of Pray Tell’s bottles (specifically the ’21 Syrah) on the shelf at Carmy and Sydney’s restaurant. So I guess Sweeps really did learn a thing or two during his sommelier classes.

Read more at Philly Mag