About us

Our doors opened on March 27th 2000, with a vision to support our neighborhood through a thoughtfully curated selection of classic and natural wines, small-batch spirits, cider and sake. We are passionate champions of small, artisan producers, mom-and-pop wineries and craft distillers and are proud to carry one of the most eclectic selections of wine and spirits in the country. 

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Patty Lenartz
Founder
Patty Lenartz (née Flynn) has lived many lives and has worked just as many jobs across wildly different industries -restaurant and hospitality, public education, music and entertainment. For 23 years, and together with her husband, Bob, Patty carved and shaped the mission and ethos of our mom-and-pop wine shop in the wonderfully tight-knit neighborhood of South Slope. She's a devoted supporter of the neighborhood, and actively participates and supports groups like the Celebrate Brooklyn Friends Council, the Park Slope Chamber of Commerce, and the Brooklyn Bombers Softball team, as well as many public schools and after-school programs. Though she officially retired from slinging wine & booze in April 2023, you can still see her strutting around 7th Ave or strolling through Prospect Park with her dogs.

 

Ben Hagen
Propietor/Wine Buyer
Ben Hagen is a Bay Area native who landed in NYC 2002 after receiving a B.A in Theater in London. He stumbled upon Slope Cellars on a walk in his neighborhood, peeked in and met Patty (♥️) and ended up with a part time job to learn more about wine. Fast forward years later: wine school was attended, bottles upon bottles were opened and that part time job became a full fledged career, first as wine buyer and then as partner at Slope Cellars. As a wine drinker, Ben is what we call an acid fiend—having an unwavering love for wines with tart, mouthwatering acidity—which is why there’s a good chance a De Moor Aligoté or a good old-school Alto Piemonte Nebbiolo are in his glass often. For an after dinner sipper, Ben has a hard time looking past a Cappellano Barolo Chinato. He’s a grateful guy who loves his job.

 

Alejandra Guanipa
General Manager, Wine & Spirits Buyer
Alejandra Guanipa hails from Venezuela via the Bay Area, where she graduated from UC Berkeley. She holds a Master’s degree from NYU in Food Studies, where she explored the intersection of food, immigration, and ethnic representation in restaurants. She has twenty years of restaurant experience across every position imaginable in some of the best restaurants in the East and West coasts, including NOPA and Range in San Francisco, and the beloved but now closed Franny’s in Brooklyn. She’s been working almost solely with Italian wine for over a decade, and until recently, served as Wine Director at Roman’s in Fort Greene, where she focused on natural wines from Italy and New York State. When she is not on the clock, Alejandra is likely cooking up a storm in her tiny Brooklyn kitchen, where there are several experimental batches of her own amaro. Lately, she’s been having a love affair with gin and finds a perfect martini exquisite.

 

Marco Cacciola
Spirits Advisor
A Brooklyn native through and through, Marco is Slopey’s spirited spirits encyclopedia—aka the "tall one, with the hair." When he was in high school, Marco would bring books on the stylistic differences of beer to school—but hey, it wasn't actual beer, so the teachers didn't care. He had a stint in culinary school because of both a lifelong love of cooking and reading too much Anthony Bourdain (RIP) but left because he didn't listen to Bourdain's words that the restaurant world is for a very certain type of person. Sooner than later, Marco came to love cocktails and mixing drinks. Not just the act of drinking them but specifically the history of spirits and cocktails. He is endlessly fascinated by how spirits can demonstrate the ways in which nature is controlled, morphed and concentrated into a potable liquid; chaos is grasped, made into something resembling order. The resulting product, a merriment that holds sway in human cultures worldwide. Marco would dare say it is kinda cool when you think of it that way. Talia Baiocchi's book on sherry spread Marco’s love of "drinking history" to wine. So with this newfound interest and in need of a job, Marco started working in the wine industry. Marco sees this as a way to live history and to share it with others, without having to put on a redcoat and grabbing a musket, for history like all stories is best when shared.

 

 

Matt Egan
Assistant General Manager
Matt's Journey with wine hasn't always been a linear one, but it started through his dad who loved the finer wines in life, especially old-school Riojas, but also valued simpler, more affordable options—"poundage," he called it. Matt’s life has been very much interdisciplinary: working as an editor at a commercial post production company, at Major League Soccer, and as a production assistant on movie sets. But it was the restaurant world that solidified his love of wine, after working in restaurants like Momofuku, both at Noodle Bar in Toronto and Ko in New York City, and at Misi in Brooklyn. Matt is originally from Boston, and has an unconditional love for David Ortiz and Dunkin' Donuts. He has been in New York for 5 years, and currently lives in Park Slope with his partner Jilly and their spunky kitten, Aubrey.

 

 

Michael Guagno
Spirits Advisor & Content Creator
Michael spent fifteen years behind bars in New York City, and just now, he is realizing that that was a very ambiguous combination of words. He does, in fact, still appear behind New York cocktail bars like Quarter Bar and the Rockwell Place from time to time. Before coming to Slope Cellars, he worked hospitality jobs like those as well as sometimes working as a performer and artist. Michael is originally from Pennsylvania, and has been living in Brooklyn since 2005. On very lucky days, he can be seen at the shop with his very small dog, Boo.