An Ethiopian Honey Wine Specialist Opens an Alexandria Tasting Room

Honey wine was among the first alcoholic beverages human beings ever consumed. Gize Negussie, who began producing tej for local Ethiopian restaurants in 2020, opened a honey wine tasting room in Alexandria in October. “If you offer Ethiopians grape wine and honey wine, they’ll pick the honey wine,” Negussie says. But Negussie believes that the new tasting room, where he offers flights of both tej and Virginia red and white wines, along with snacks like injera crisps, is the only tej tasting room in the US. But those two transportation options make it easy to get there—and to take the Blue Line home if you get carried away with the honey wine.