Like the downtown area in which it resides, the Griswold Inn has retained its charm throughout the years. With proper respect and attention paid to their rich histories, both streetscape and inn also offer smart examples of how well modern sensibilities marry with the past. Chic meets New England country as boutiques nestle alongside historic homes, and Revolutionary watering holes boast martini menus.

Or, in the case of the Griswold Inn Wine Bar, a selection of wine flights, among other spirits. With such a full selection of wines and a menu of mostly small-plate options, I thought it best to pay my latest visit to the wine bar with a few friends. Despite a lack of a reservation, four of us got seated right away.

Aside from the brilliant curating of the wines themselves, the Gris wine bar makes a wine-flight sampling an experience. The wines arrived with three glasses placed on corresponding placemats that identified each wine in the flight — a detail we fully appreciated and which launched a great mini-wine-tasting session.

All four of us ordered a different flight, and all four of us found a new must-buy wine. Or, in my case, all three wines on the Volo Bianco “white flight,” featuring wines from three regions in Italy: Gavi Principessa (Piedmont province); Felluga Esperto, Pinot Grigio, Friuli (region) and Antinori Vermentino, from Tuscany ($14). All three whites offered crisp, but not too crisp, minerality with pleasant notes of citrus (the Principessa), honey (the Antinori Vermentino), and vanilla (the Felluga Esperto).

When it came time to order food, we found ourselves wondering what would happen if we tried EVERYTHING on the creative, seasonally relevant menu. In the end, we settled for something off of nearly every section of the menu and let the staff bring out dishes as they were ready.

From the “micro plates” list (ideal wine-sipping nosh), we opted for the garlic edamame with grated parmesan ($5). This dish quickly became one of our top two favorites. The simplicity of edamame is generally delicious enough with the simple addition of salt to the steamed pods. Add in garlic and rough-grated Parmesan and you’ve got one tasty, fairly healthy finger food that’s fun to eat. One edamame order generously fed all four of us, down to the last soybean pod.

We unfairly paid less attention to the yummy cheese plate of D’Affinois ($4) we ordered off the artisanal cheeses list. At first. Served with ciabatta slices, green apples slices and cashews, the French double-cream soft cheese proved a pleasing side-trip between soybeans. One note: with four of us eating the cheese, the four slices of ciabatta disappeared quickly, leaving us with a goodly amount of cheese sans starchy dipper. Not a big deal, but a few more bread slices would have been welcomed. We made do with apple pairings and unabashed cheese-only forkings.

Our selections from the small plates menu (buy two, get one free) included a grilled asparagus salad of citrus-infused goat cheese and mesclun greens, dressed in a fabulous lemon-thyme vinaigrette ($8). We were surpised by how beautifully citrus essence paired with the goat cheese, and were doubly thrilled with how delicious it was combined with fresh, fresh, fresh grilled asparagus and the greens. We finished the salad quickly and congratulated ourselves on a great menu pick.

Another round of self-congratulatory high fives broke out when we sampled our other favorite of the night: a chilled spring pea soup served with lemon crème fraiche, preserved lemon, and toasted hazelnuts ($7). We enjoyed everything about this dish, from presentation — the server pours the bright-green soup around and around the mound of creme fraiche and hazelnuts already in the soup bowl — to the very last spoonfuls, which changed from taste to taste, depending on how much creme or nuts or lemon you’d gathered in the spoon.

Our final selection off the small plates list was the roasted lamb chops, served with date puree and cauliflower cous cous ($14). The flavor of the date puree paired with the lamb was out of this world — the mild sweetness of the date offsetting the rich, juicy, savory lamb. I didn’t love the cauliflower cous cous — I got a hint of bitterness in the mix — but the execution thereof was beautiful, with four wee mounds of the cous cous plated around the lamb chops. I’m very fussy about lamb and found the Gris’s preparation — done with a carmelized honey reduction — to be among the best I’ve sampled.

The last item to arrive was the house-made potato gnocchi ($18) off the macro plates menu — a portion size that works as a main dish or is perfect for sharing among a group. Gnocchi is a dish that I find reliably wonderful, but the Gris has raised the bar and spoiled me forever by adding in a handful of arugula and shallots cooked to onion-ring crispness. The roasted tomato sauce and Grana Padano cheese certainly didn’t hurt, but the slight kick of the arugula and the crunch of the shallots lent fun texture and flavor to this old stand-by comfort food.

I’m not sure how we passed on dessert like Dark Chocolate Crémeux and White Chocolate and Lime Cheesecake, but we decided to quit eating while we were ahead (read: not stuffed) and save the sweets for next time — because there will absolutely be a next time, sooner rather than later.

Griswold Inn Wine Bar

36 Main St., Essex

(860) 767-1776

griswoldinn.com

Cuisine: Tapas with many twists; cheeses; desserts; some entree-size items available

Atmosphere: Tasteful nautical theme, great art on the walls, and mood lighting; tables and some club seats available; polished dark and light wood accents make shared tables chic

Service: Pleasant and professional

Price: Inexpensive to moderate. The most expensive item is the $24 seared Atlantic salmon on the macro plate menu.

Hours: Wednesday and Thursday from 6 to 9 p.m.; Friday from 6 to 10 p.m.; Saturday from 5 to 10 p.m.; and Sunday from 4:30 to 8:30 p.m. (Note: Dining room and tap room have their own hours. Check the website for details.)

Credit cards: All majors

Handicapped access: Entrance is at street-level from sidewalk; interior is very roomy

Reservations: Available