HART & CRU is a concierge-style service focused on selling artisanal wines to avid drinkers through special offers, e-commerce, wine clubs, tastings and more.

The heart of HART & CRU is selecting wine for customers like you. We offer concierge services to help you curate bottles and then deliver them directly to your doorstep. Whether we work together one on one to best match bottles to your tastes, or you choose from the curated selection on our website, we pride ourselves in matching the wines we love to the people who love to drink great juice.

SERVICES

CURATED WINE SELECTION: Helping you find the perfect bottle whether it’s for yourself or a gift for someone else. We believe deeply in our producers and are happy to help select the right bottle for any occasion. Whether it’s wine for a wedding, or a bottle to go with dinner, we’re always on the look out for ways to help.

WINE EVENTS: Popping Bottles. Pulling off a memorable event for your friends or clients can be a harrowing task. HART & CRU is here to help you crush it. Our wines, sourced from around the world, will blow up any bash or heighten the experience of your company retreat. A party without good juice is no party indeed.

GIFT CARDS AND SETS: HART & CRU offers assistance with wine purchasing to meet your needs and budget. With us, you are sure to win birthdays and holidays. We offer seasonal gift sets to help keep things simple. 

SOURCING FOR WINE COLLECTORS: We have serious buying power. Through HART & CRU's producer/retailer/auction-house networks and vast relationships we can help you take your collection to the next level with ease and efficiency.

FOOD & WINE MENU PAIRING: The art of flavor-elevation through exquisite beverage pairings is tricky and requires dedication. With years of experience, we are prepared to help you develop the perfect pairings for any menu.

SOURCING FOR WINE COLLECTORS: We have serious buying power. Through HART & CRU's producer/retailer/auction-house networks and vast relationships we can help you take your collection to the next level with ease and efficiency.

PERSONAL CELLAR MANAGEMENT: Maintaining a stellar cellar to fit your tastes and experiences is one of our specialties. HART & CRU has been creating custom, efficient wine cellar management solutions for years. Let us help you create and manage the ideal cellar.

CELLAR SALES: Liquidating a cellar is no small task. With our expertise and extensive local and global wine community network, we can provide an exhaustive solution to your wine-liquidation needs.

TEAM WINE TASTING: Brainstorm level up. Wine has a vast history of sparking creativity and discussion. Whether you and your team are trying to reinvent the wheel or you’re just looking for an infusion of new ideas, our wine tastings are the perfect pairing with a brainstorm or corporate retreat.

HOSPITALITY STAFF EDUCATION: Restaurants, bars, hotels and baseball stadiums — if you want your brand to stand out in the market, a knowledgeable staff is essential. With years of industry experience and a dedication to continuous improvement, HART & CRU is well positioned to train your staff to be comfortable and knowledgeable when guiding your guests and clients through the world of wine.

SPECIAL OPERATIONS: HART & CRU believes building a successful business begins with developing efficient systems for managing growth. We can help you bring your management and operations to the next level through our bespoke consulting service.

ABOUT KEVIN HART

Hart & Cru founder, Kevin Hart, is an experienced sommelier and dedicated student of the vine. He worked the floor at Boca for seven years, eventually becoming sommelier and general manager. Alongside Chef David Falk, he developed his palate for pairing food and wine. He deepened his knowledge of French wines while working with Mobil Four-Star Chef Jean-Robert de Cavel. His stint as sommelier at Pigall’s, a Relais & Chateaux restaurant, impressed upon him the importance of classic styles in both the kitchen and the bottle.

After years in the restaurant world, he felt the time was right to take his career to the next level by leveraging his friendships with top wine producers, connoisseurs and obsessives. In 2012, Kevin teamed up with his mentor, Gordon Hue, to grow wineCRAFT, an importing-distributing company based in Cincinnati. With the knowledge and connections gained from wineCRAFT, Kevin decided to return to the then-expanded Boca Restaurant Group. As Beverage Director, he enjoyed a broader platform to express his point of view on quality-crafted wines and he reconnected to his deep love of hospitality and serving people.

In 2015, Hart’s entrepreneurial spirit moved front and center and he launched HART & CRU to focus on bringing wine education, product selection and market expansion to an array of corporate clients. Over the past 5 years, the business has grown to service a growing number of wine enthusiasts, private clients and daily drinkers by offering concierge services—such as bottle selection and delivery, monthly wine clubs, in-person and virtual tastings, private events and cellar management. In 2021 HART & CRU established itself as a brick and mortar location in the historic Pendleton district in OTR. The tasting room, which offers a rotating selection of glass pours and bottle selections, also acts as an event space for both public and private wine events.

I was born in a cornfield in northwest Ohio. Well not actually “in the corn field,” but I spent my childhood a breath away from my grandparents farm, which was filled with fields of fragrant corn and orchards of beautiful apple trees. I won’t pretend to know all the sub soils of that Ohio flat-land; whether it’s loamy clay, schist, marl or limestone, but those apples—the ones my grandmother pressed on her four-acre farm—ultimately shaped my life.

Even after sixteen years of education and eventually design school, I couldn’t get that apple juice off my mind. While working my way through school, I landed in a series of restaurants, each better than the next, until I was simultaneously attending college and working the floor at Boca on nights and weekends. I was chasing old dreams and conjuring new ones: designing cars, furniture and sculpture at the same time I was discovering micro-lot coffee, real, hand-made pasta, working with chefs worth believing in and drinking mind-blowing wines. All of this added up to a deep love of the well-crafted and soulful. Which brings me back to that apple juice: a drinking experience seared in both my mind’s eye and on my palate, and offering a rich story and a sense of place.

For me, wine is about listening to a thousand years of history and realizing that a great bottle represents so much more than simply our best effort. Wine’s complexity, its beauty, is realized through the tension between man and nature. When I taste good wine, I taste handshakes; I taste pruning, degorging, pressing, pinching, breathing. When I taste wine I think of my friends; the self-taught meteorologists, the philosophers who know end-of-harvest-heartbreaks; I think about sitting at Giuseppe Vajra’s kitchen table in Piemonte, I think about his newborn child who will lie down in the vineyard and dream.

In my twenties, I went to Europe and made my way through the Italian countryside leaving a trail of empty bottles and the potent memories of endless walks through the vines. I meandered through Chianti Classico led by an intrepid farmer whose clippings have become clones for 90% of Tuscany. I devoured 18-hour days in Southern France, introducing my lips to thousands of wines. I learned to keep up with legendary wine junkies, soaking up their stories of spilt ’69 Haut-Brion. I stifled fanboy smiles in the presence of France’s Gang of Four, the cherished rebels who saved the soul of Beaujolais from Nouveau's debasement.

I’m not here to tell you what you have to taste. I wouldn’t tell you what books to read, what albums to buy or how to dress well. You already know what you like. I’m here to tell stories. I’m here to be a conduit for wine lovers and farmers, from the earth to the glass. I’m here to cut through thick pretense, allay your fears, and dispel any notions that this divine substance should be intimidating and out-of-reach. I’m here to help you discover your favorite wines and to help you to always drink well.