Best of Philly Spotlight: Sommelier Jamie Harrison Rubin Is Crushing It With His Wine Nights

Best of Philly 2025 winner for Best Sommelier: Jamie Harrison Rubin of Southwark / Photograph by Linette Messina

Jamie Harrison Rubin, wine director of Southwark and Ambra, is not impressed by the prestige of fancy labels. He’s more interested in esoteric vintages from small, renegade producers focusing on regenerative farming and sustainability, and in making sure your experience with the beverage is fun and social. For Rubin, an environmentalist at heart, the ethos is just as important as the tasting notes, and on Monday nights at Southwark his intellectually curious and eco-friendly palate really shines.

Welcome to Winewark, a low-key hangout for wine lovers, neighborhood regulars, and industry workers who are off for the night. Every Monday starting at 7 p.m., Rubin trades in his suit jacket for casual clothes, bumps some ’90s and 2000s hip-hop, and pours from an eclectic variety of bottles he’s stashed away in the bar’s cellar.

There’s some overlap with Southwark’s by-the-glass program and Ambra’s pairings, but much of what you’ll encounter at Winewark is in such high demand that Rubin can get only a couple of bottles, “or I have to yell and scream and jump up and down for a distributor to bring them into the state,” he says.

One week you might start your night in the Loire Valley with a Cab Franc followed by a comparative from Chassagne-Montrachet. Your next visit, a domestic Grenache rosé from Brij Wines, a Montepulciano d’Abruzzo from biodynamic producer Emidio Pepe, or a Barolo from 2011. It’s a master class in terroir and vinifera, a gustatory adventure, and, overall, a night of unpretentious sophistication.

The whole Winewark idea was born from the pandemic. During the Great Pause, Rubin decided to transition from being the general manager and beverage director for the Ambra Restaurant Group to consulting. Eventually, when Ambra and Southwark were ready to reopen, he returned to build a new wine program. “I was looking through all the inventory and felt a little bit of guilt because I had loaded the cellar with a lot of stuff that was very, very Jamie,” he says. So, in order to move the more obscure bottles he’d amassed, he started Winewark. He thought it would last only a couple of weeks — a month, tops — but the series quickly became a hit. Over the years, it has become a very vibrant scene, Rubin says.

So if you’re looking for a place where seasoned oenophiles and curious amateurs congregate to “talk about wine in a way that’s not obnoxious,” as Rubin puts it, pull up a seat. Winewark is where Rubin’s passion for the planet and phenomenal wine flow freely, creating a welcoming space for all.

Southwark, 701 South 4th Street, Queen Village.

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Published as “Picture This: Crushing It” in the August 2025 issue of Philadelphia magazine.