- Open, bright, and airy, the shop showcases Brandi Carter’s carefully curated selections.
Buying wine can be an intimidating endeavor if you don’t know much about the winemaking process. There are wine-tasting classes and wine dinners, all designed to help consumers learn to better appreciate the fruit of the vine.
Brandi Carter didn’t set out to be a wine expert or a wine merchant. The Meridian native went to school to study drafting.
“I found myself in the construction engineering world, and I was miserable.” Several of her friends were waiting tables in Jackson. “I needed a change of scenery, so I moved to Jackson in 2016 to figure out my next step.”
Brandi waited tables and ended up at Lou’s Full Serve in 2018, where she met sous chef Hunter Evans.
“While waiting tables, I realized that I loved restaurant life. I knew I wanted to do something in that world, and that I was very interested in wines.”
In the summer of 2019, Brandi earned her first Court of Masters Sommeliers certification.
“At that point, I didn’t think I wanted to stay in Jackson. But Hunter and I were good at collaborating on things, and he reminded me that he had plans to open a restaurant (Elvie’s).”
Hunter asked Brandi to run the bar program at Elvie’s, but she wasn’t very confident at first.
“I had just gotten my sommelier certification. But I bought a ton of books and for six months I learned to craft a cocktail and I learned all I could about wine.”
Elvie’s opened in January 2020, and the first year was tough due to the COVID pandemic. But in a way, that took a bit of pressure off Brandi as she found her way leading the bar program at the restaurant.
“I had a friend who believes in natural wines and who it impacts,” says Brandi, who read even more books and dove a bit deeper into the production techniques of natural producers. “I learned to enjoy the vibrancy of the wines, and I reached a point where I couldn’t go back.”
As she began to understand Hunter’s vision for Elvie’s as a farm-to-table restaurant that sources directly from the growers and producers, Brandi realized the wine program needed to change.
“I approached Hunter with the idea that we use more natural wines from small wineries.”
He agreed, and that began a quest for Brandi to source the wines she felt would best complement the food at Elvie’s. She sought out natural and low-intervention wines that support small producers and are made to best represent the vineyards and farmers they started with.
She was approached to open an outdoor bar, Good Bar, in the same area.
“I love doing that, but I made it clear that I wanted to open a retail shop one day.”
She also consults with Hunter’s newest restaurant venture, The Mayflower, in downtown Jackson.
When the time came to open her wine shop, Hunter suggested that he and his business partner, Cody McCain, invest in the shop with Brandi.
“It seemed natural to me. I now run the shop on a day-to-day basis.”
The wine shop, which opened in December 2024, is located in Banner Hall on I-55, in the former home of The Bridal Path. Brandi named the store Levure Bottle Shop. Levure is the French word for yeast.
“We carry natural wines, and natural wines ferment with their native yeasts,” explains Brandi. “We mostly source wines that use the natural yeasts from producers who are hands-off in the wine-making process. The yeast gives a fuller sense of place. These wines are all from small production wineries – most have only four or five employees and produce only 5000 cases a year, which is a small amount in the wine world. They don’t do it for the money. They do it for the love of wine.”
Brandi has that same love and often gets close to the winemakers.
“I go to Oregon each year to work during the harvest at a winery I love. They don’t have enough people working there to handle it. It’s an honor for me to do it. For me, it brings the wine to life.”
The store looks different from most wine and liquor stores in the state.
“I’ve always had a bug for creativity and making things,” laughs Brandi. “I guess that’s why I have enjoyed crafting cocktails so much.”
Now she is using her creativity in her own shop. Open, bright, and airy, the shop showcases the carefully curated selections.
“It’s different in layout,” she says. “People don’t think of wines like sommeliers do. Wines fall into broader categories. In our shop, we will have, for example, a section that says, ‘If you like pinot noir, you might also like this.’ It’s a fun approach to buying wine, not at all snooty. We can tell you where the wine is from and make those connections. There are people behind these wines, and we like to think the wine here is akin to bottled art. A lot of effort goes into making them.”
Susan Marquez
