A wine bar built around regional grapes has just claimed the biggest storefront inside Boston Public Market. Marzae Cellar + Provisions soft-opened in August with roughly 95 seats spread across dining tables, lounge space, and a bar, taking over the largest retail footprint in Boston Public Market.
The tasting room is the downtown debut of Marzae, the natural winery that Eliot Martin and Katie Luczai launched in Acton in August 2023 as, according to Edible Boston, the state's first and only natural winery. Landing inside Boston Public Market gives Marzae a downtown home. The market now counts Marzae's wine bar among its centerpiece vendors.
The Boston Globe has covered the new space. Marzae Cellar + Provisions sits at 100 Hanover St. in downtown Boston, functioning as both a wine bar and a retail store, the paper reports.
An All-Northeast Pour List Built on Cold-Hardy Grapes
Marzae serves natural wines made in Massachusetts, and the bar offers R. Typhina, made with Arandell and Marquette grapes, per the Globe's coverage. The bar also offers the S. Nigra 2023, an orange wine, and the R. Occidentalis 2023, a blend of Marquette, Petite Pearl, and Blaufrankisch. Wine by the glass and flights are available.
Those grape names are not accidents of branding. Cold-hardy hybrid varieties like Marquette, La Crescent, Petite Pearl, and Arandell are bred by crossing European Vitis vinifera with wild native American grapes, a cross that gives them disease resistance and frost tolerance, according to Wine Enthusiast. These varieties have become part of East Coast low-intervention winemaking more broadly.
Martin brings formal training to that approach. He earned a master's degree in Food Policy and Nutrition from Tufts University's Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy, where he focused on sustainable farming practices before launching the winery, according to Edible Boston. Before Marzae, per Tufts Alumni, he had cultivated gardens in suburban Chicago and managed an urban vineyard in London.
Growing Its Own Grapes in Haverhill and the Berkshires
Marzae has been steadily shifting from buying regional grapes to growing its own. The winery partnered with the historic Whittier Birthplace in Haverhill to plant a 1.7-acre, regeneratively farmed experimental vineyard containing 26 distinct grape varieties, according to WHAV News. That 19th-century Essex County farm has also become a hub for the broader regional natural wine scene: Marzae created and hosts MASSeration, an annual natural wine fair that brought together 18 Northeast natural wine and cider producers at the Whittier Birthplace in July 2025, per CNHI News.
More recently, Marzae took over management of an abandoned Berkshire vineyard, with plans to fold that harvested fruit into its 2026 releases, according to Patch. The winery had historically imported grapes primarily from Vermont and New York growers, so restoring Western Massachusetts acreage marks a shift toward growing more of its own fruit closer to home.
Food From Providence, Sold by the Half-Pour
Running the kitchen is executive chef Jonathon Kirk, who comes from Providence and draws on ingredients from local vendors, according to the Globe's reporting. The dinner menu includes raw bluefin tuna and foie gras sausage and offers a chef selection priced at $55 per person. Kirk changes the menu frequently based on ingredient availability, pulling from suppliers including Red's Best and Ward's Berry Farm.
During the day, Marzae shifts to an abbreviated menu of pizza and baked goods. The retail side sells New England-made and local artisanal products.
Drinks Beyond the Wine List, and a Push to Cut Waste
Marzae rounds out its bar program with aperitifs, cocktails, beer and offerings from Off Piste Ferments. To cut packaging waste and lower carbon emissions, Marzae serves the majority of its wines on draft and offers a refillable growler membership, according to Boston Public Market. The draft-first format is part of the bar's effort to reduce packaging waste and carbon emissions.
Marzae also outlines its approach to workplace equity. Whether the market's downtown crowd fully embraces the draft-and-growler model, and how quickly the Haverhill vines mature into a commercial harvest, remain open questions as Marzae settles into its new home near Haymarket.
