The first time I set foot on the block of Avenue A just above East Houston Street was to buy a crib at Schneider’s, the juvenile furniture store. My next visit to the block was on Election Day last week. By then, the former occupant of the crib was old enough to buy himself a good bottle at Discovery Wines, a new and innovative shop a few doors down from Schneider’s on Avenue A, where the East Village, Lower East Side, and Alphabet City converge. When I told Anthony White, one of Discovery Wines’ four partners, about my long-ago trek to Schneider’s, he laughed and said, “The first time I was ever on this block, it was to buy a crib for my daughter.”

As wine shops go, Discovery is striking for its clean, well-lit, and airy presence on a block that, despite a few stabs at being cool, still feels grungy. There’s a Zen-like restraint in the presentation of the shop’s 460 different wines, selected after tasting through 5,000 bottles, according to Mr. White. A few bottles of each wine stand upright in cabinets along the walls of the deep space. Atypically, the counters in the spacious center aisle, where most wine stores would pile cartons of best-selling wines, are all but bare, showcasing just a few bottles like works of art. “We like to think that wine is not just another product like detergent,” said Ellisa Cooper, another partner. “If you do a floor stack, you’re telling me that you have no real respect for the wine or the customer.”

The same respect is shown at the daily wine and spirits tastings held at the ample bar in the rear of the store, where samples are served in handsome stemware instead of plastic.

What really sets Discovery Wines apart is easy to miss at first glance: the 11 video kiosks discreetly spread around the shop. Swipe any bottle’s bar code under the reader beneath the screen, and up pops an informative profile of the wine’s origin, grape blend, style, and food matches. Or query food matches on the console and recommended wines will pop up. Let it be said up front (to its credit, Discovery Wines does) that these notes are mainly sourced from wineries, importers, and distributors who aren’t unbiased, although the partners vet and edit the descriptions before they go into the system.

The first wine I scanned was Chateau Tour Simard 1999, a red wine from Saint Emilion. At $39.95, it was the highest-priced Bordeaux in the shop, and unfamiliar to me. I learned from the video kiosk that Chateau Tour Simard is the second label of Chateau Pavie, a current favorite of wine-rater Robert Parker Jr. The 1999 Chateau Pavie was awarded 95 points by Mr. Parker, and the 2000 vintage scored a perfect 100 points. Chateau Tour Simard is a third the price of its “big brother.”

Discovery Wines first took shape in the mind of Byron Bennett, an East Village resident with experience in “finance and entrepreneurship.” In spring 2003, Mr. Bennett started “looking for a type of business I could do in the neighborhood with my friends.” He approached Kentucky-born Ms. Cooper, whom he had met through a mutual friend. Ms. Cooper, trained as a singer, was a self-described “closet oenophile – or maybe not so closeted.” She brought in Scott Reiner, a former banker with whom she had taken a sommelier’s course. Mr. Reiner knew Mr. White, who had done stints as a photography teacher and video producer for the Heritage Foundation before getting the wine bug during numerous trips to France in the early1980s while working on a cognac account for an ad agency. After a sojourn at a Midwest wine distributor in the mid-1990s, Mr. White returned to the city to work at Morrell & Company from 1998 to 2002.

All four friends agreed that the neighborhood could use a “concept” wine shop. “Our big idea with the kiosks and daily tastings was to pull the curtain back from the wine world,” Mr. Reiner said.

Mr. Bennett, a graduate of the Wharton School, found a pair of investors, Chicago financier Scott Morris and New Jersey lawyer William McCarter. “I wrote the first business plan in September, 2003,” he said. The first choice for the wine shop’s location was a high-visibility East Houston Street corner, but the rent was too high, so they turned to the current space, a former dental office on Avenue A. At 3,400 square feet, the space “is larger than Sherry-Lehmann,” said Mr. White, referring to the prominent wine shop on Madison Avenue.

Discovery Wines, now three months old, tries to keep faith with a community that, Mr. White says, “is gentrifying, but very gradually.” A note posted at the entrance last week by Mr. Bennett offers local artists “some good quality wood left over from our build-out that we’d rather give away than throw out.”

Dogs and carriages are welcomed at the shop, and during my visit Ms. Cooper patiently held a 4-year-old up to a video console for five minutes for a button pushing session – a level of patience not common in uptown shops. Mindful that many local residents are on budgets and do not dine at 71 Clinton or other nearby upscale restaurants, the shop posts a sign on the sidewalk announcing that 70% of its wines are priced at less than $20. Not that everyone gets the message. I overheard a young woman leaving the shop, cell phone to her ear, saying, “I’m leaving Discovery Wines because it’s like, fancy or something.”

Ms. Cooper winced when I told her of the young woman’s reaction. “We try really hard to find inexpensive wines that are good,” she said. She pointed to a trio of Barefoot Cellar reds from California at $5.99 and, at the same price, the Ca’Donini Pinot Grigio 2003. I swiped the bar code of this wine and learned that it is named for a 19th-century bar owner in Old Milan and that it works well with “pork dishes, dishes that are slightly spicy, and ones prepared with juniper berries.”

For those who do want a fancy bottle, especially as the holiday gift season approaches, Discovery Wines has a properly chilled back room offering such hard-to-find treasures as Clos de Tart 1993, a mature red Burgundy Grand Cru ($163), Chateau Haut Brion Blanc 1992 from Graves ($239), and Paul Hobbs Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon 2001 from the legendary Beckstoffer-Tokalon Vineyard in the Napa Valley ($199).

Discovery Wines, 10 Avenue A, between East Houston and East 2nd St., open Monday through Saturday, 11a.m. to 10 p.m., and Sunday, 12 p.m. to 9 p.m. For more information call 212-674-7833 or visitwww.discoverywines.com.

Wine Hunting

Asked to recommend a personal favorite wine from current stock, Discovery Wines’ partners responded as follows:

ELLISA COOPER: DOMAINE VIRET, CUVEE ST. MAURICE 2001 ($13.99) “The boys are going to be jealous that I picked this. Pure grenache and just the perfect expression of earthiness on the nose, and a beautiful wine in the mouth. For me it is exactly what a Cotes du Rhone should be.”

SCOTT REINER: BAILEYANNA CHARDONNAY, EDNA VALLEY, GRAND FIREPEAK CUVEE, 2001 ($29.99) “I don’t usually like California chardonnay – too much extraction, too much oak. But this one is much more Burgundian. It’s got minerality and oak, but in balance. It will stand up to intensely flavored foods. We try to source from small producers, and this is an example.”

BYRON BENNET: MORTON RIDGE PINOT NOIR, RUSSIAN RIVER VALLEY, 2002 ($21.98) “Soft with more cherry and vanilla rather than darker flavors. A little smoky. This wine has tasted good with every dish I’ve tried it with.” [Note: Morton Ridge is a second label of prestigious August Briggs Vineyards. This wine is currently served at the Odeon, the TriBeCa bistro.

ANTHONY WHITE: SINEANN PINOT NOIR “RESONANCE” 2002, OREGON ($49.95) “Oregon pinot noir has a different structure and way of opening up in the glass compared to others. I started sipping this wine on my birthday. A quarter of the way through I had to rush out and buy a steak for the grill. At first you’re smelling that cherry berry thing, and then it comes on with bacon and leather. This is expensive, but it’s our best pinot noir.”