In 2018 we launched Wineslinger to lead people to places around Australia where they can enjoy a glass of wine, whilst at the same time encouraging the creativity and excellence in this environment.
We’re presenting an annual list of Top venues as determined by a cross section of Australia’s leading wine and hospitality tastemakers – winemakers, sommeliers and journalists – who vote on their favourite wine haunts.
It is then up to the public to decide which of the Top venues wins the ‘People’s Choice’. The other trophies include top spot ‘Wineslinger’, ‘Best New Haunt’, and the ‘Maverick’ which recognises a venue pushing the boundaries of possibility. All trophy winners will be announced on December 5.
In the inaugural year, 2018, City Wine Shop took the overall title, as voted on the panel of 100+ industry leaders, and Harvest Newrybar was the most popular venue, as voted by the public, taking out the People’s Choice award.
In 2019, Sydney’s 10 William Street took out the overall prize, while Margaret River’s Settlers Tavern won the People’s Choice award. There were two new awards added in 2019, with Perth’s Wines of While winning the Best New Haunt, as best venue under two years old, while Byron Bay’s Supernatural Cellars was our first Maverick recipient, as the most adventurous venue, pushing boundaries to breaking point.
In 2020, Melbourne’s Carlton Wine Room took out the overall prize, while Geelong’s Union Street Wine won the People’s Choice award, Adelaide’s Leigh Street Wine Room was the Best New Haunt, and Brisbane’s Snack Man was the named the Maverick.
Last year, Last year, P&V Merchants in Sydney was voted the Best New Act, Si Paradiso in Perth took out the Maverick, Good Gilbert in Adelaide was named the People’s Choice and Melbourne’s Embla took out the overall prize.
We want to lead people to venues where they can have a great wine experience.
The objective of this award is to showcase and celebrate the venues around Australia where our type of wine folk like to enjoy a glass of wine, or two, or more… Places with approachability, energy and adventure.
This award is not about one component such as food and wine matching, or the wine list, or the service… it is about the whole experience. What draws us all to those places where we like to enjoy wine is really the sum of the parts.
It’s often that undefinable thing a place has that makes it special. It is up to panellists to each establish their own lens of what venue has the best experience for wine drinkers.
This award is also an opportunity to recognise the originality, commitment, and quality of a venue’s offering.
There are blurred lines between wine bars, restaurants and pubs. Food and wine go hand in hand, so it’s hard to think of an on-premise venue where food doesn’t play a very good supporting role in the experience.
Boundaries of scope for this award include:
New South Wales, Paddington
Top Venues
2023 Top Venues
2022 Top Venues
2021 Top Venues
2020 Top 50
2019 Wineslinger
2019 Top 50
2018 Top 50
An offshoot of Potts Point’s much-loved Fratelli Paradiso, 10 William St shed the skin of modern Australian-Italian dining with a push away from fried calamari with rocket et al, delving into a new form of Italian experimentation. Respectful and subtle experimentation, that is. And while Fratelli Paradiso has long stuck to a wine list that…
Victoria, Fitzroy
Top Venues
2022 Top Venues
2021 Top Venues
2020 Top 50
2019 Top 50
2018 Top 50
Bar Liberty is a canvas for the talents of ex-Attica duo Banjo Harris Plane and Michael Bascetta, a disruptor, a chance to throw out the formality, the rules, and have at it with instinct and raw talent.
Victoria, Daylesford
Top Venues
2023 Top Venues
2022 Top Venues
2022 Best New Haunt
Named after the Italian ritual of a mid-afternoon snack with wine, Bar Merenda captures a sense of the bucolic life enjoyed in picturesque Daylesford. It’s the sum of strong creative inputs. It combines Clare O’Flynn’s skills as a designer and illustrator whith her husband Andy Ainsworth’s experience with managing wine-centric venues. They also grow vegetables…
ACT, Canberra
Top Venues
2023 Top Venues
2022 Top Venues
2021 Top Venues
2020 Top 50
2019 Top 50
2018 Top 50
Bar Rochford’s location in the historic Melbourne Building, which was built in 1927, is perhaps salient. When owner Nick Smith opened the doors in 2016, he’d taken inspiration both from the classic wine bars of Europe and the small bars that Melbourne is so well known for. And while Bar Rochford would slip into the…
Victoria, South Melbourne
Top Venues
2022 Top Venues
2021 Top Venues
2019 Top 50
2018 Top 50
The bolthole that is Bellota is somewhat of a sanctuary to wine lovers in a South Melbourne so steeped in pub culture. A modestly sized bistro set in a renovated terrace house in Bank Street, Bellota seats about 40 inside, which more than doubles out the front and at the rear when the sun shines….
Western Australia, West Leederville
Top Venues
2023 Top Venues
2022 Top Venues
2021 Top Venues
Besk is all about great product and easy-going good times. 500 bottles of wine from players both traditional and radical are available to stay or go. The smart fire-fuelled cooking is ample reason to stick around, though.
New South Wales, Double Bay
Top Venues
2022 Top Venues
2021 Top Venues
2020 Top 50
2019 Top 50
2018 Top 50
Paul Jones brought some useful things with him when he set up Bibo Wine Bar in an old leather-goods shop in Bay Street Double Bay. Although he didn’t have the operational skills to run a wine bar, he did know how to build and fit one out. As well as being an architect, Paul has…
South Australia, Bowden
Top Venues
2022 Top Venues
Desirable drinking and eating spaces provide a central plank in the urban renewal of Bowden, to transform a former manufacturing plant on the western fringe of Adelaide into a chic apartment precinct. Bowden Cellars, occupying an airy, light-filled and whitewashed post-industrial space located in the big Plant 3 building, is integral to this transformation with…
Victoria, Carlton
Top Venues
2023 Top Venues
2022 Top Venues
2021 Top Venues
2020 Wineslinger
2020 Top 50
2019 Top 50
2018 Top 50
The Carlton Wine Room was rebooted in early 2018 by somewhat of a hospitality dream team: Andrew Joy (former manager of Marion and Cumulus Up), Travis Howe (Coda and Tonka sommelier and co-owner) and chef John Paul Twomey (who spent a decade with Andrew McConnell as his development chef and second in command). So, one…
Victoria, Melbourne City
Top Venues
2023 Top Venues
2022 Top Venues
2021 Top Venues
2020 Top 50
2019 Top 50
2018 Wineslinger
2018 Top 50
From a single site adjacent to the Princes Theatre, business partners Con Christopoulos and Josh Brisbane have – over the course of a decade or two – acquired the entire Spring Street frontage up to the lane that borders the Imperial Hotel. Starting with the European and Melbourne Supper Club – which saved a whole…
South Australia, Adelaide CBD
Top Venues
2022 Top Venues
2021 Top Venues
2018 Top 50
Clever Little Tailor is somewhat of a veteran now, having opened in 2013 when bars like this in Adelaide – that are now thankfully somewhat more prevalent – were just a dream. With a relaxation of the licensing laws approved – much like the ones that spearheaded the Melbourne and Sydney small-bar booms – Dana…
New South Wales, Newtown
Top Venues
2022 Top Venues
2021 Top Venues
A classic Euro-style deli seen through the lens of the Porteño crew, with star bartender Michael Nicolian on the tools; perch at the bar for supreme deli fare and a glass or two, or slip into the bistro and get lost in the retro charms for a little while longer.
Queensland, Fortitude Valley
Top Venues
2023 Top Venues
2022 Top Venues
2021 Top Venues
2020 Top 50
2019 Top 50
2018 Top 50
Cru Bar & Cellar is woven into the fabric of Brisbane, with the pioneering venue never seeming to show its age, even after over a decade and a half. Wrapped around a central onyx bar, tables skirt the perimeter of the building, with patrons even seated on the sills of the retractable windows, almost spilling…
New South Wales, Potts Point
Wineslinger
Top Venues
2023 Top Venues
2022 Wineslinger
2022 Top Venues
2021 Top Venues
2020 Top 50
2019 Top 50
2018 Top 50
At Geralds, the early arrivals dictate the open bottles, which can be switched around once exhausted, with ten typically open at any one time.
Victoria, Melbourne City
Top Venues
2022 Top Venues
2021 Wineslinger
2021 Top Venues
2020 Top 50
2019 Top 50
2018 Top 50
Some years back, Christian McCabe left behind successful restaurant Matterhorn, in Wellington, to try his luck across the Tasman. That first venture was the celebrated, though now closed, Town Mouse in Drummond Street, Carlton. Along with Town Mouse chef and co-owner Dave Verheul (a Matterhorn alumnus), McCabe branched out further, and more boldly, in 2015,…
South Australia, Bowden
Top Venues
2022 Top Venues
The Fino philosophy has been built around simplicity and high quality – which has been maintained as co-owners Sharon Romeo (restaurant manager and wine buyer) and David Swain (head chef) have developed three winning venues over 16 years, culminating in their Adelaide CBD venue Fino Vino. Their earlier ventures – Fino Willunga, a modest villa…
Victoria, South Yarra
Top Venues
2022 Top Venues
2021 Top Venues
2020 Top 50
2019 Top 50
2018 Top 50
Words like ‘institution’ and ‘iconic’ get tossed around a lot, and not always with deep justification. But France-Soir, near the top of the Toorak Road hill in Melbourne’s South Yarra, has earned both of those monikers, and some time ago. It is indeed an iconic institution, and an establishment with a loyal following that few…
Victoria, Carlton North
Top Venues
2023 Top Venues
2022 Top Venues
2021 Top Venues
2020 Top 50
2018 Top 50
At Geralds, the early arrivals dictate the open bottles, which can be switched around once exhausted, with ten typically open at any one time.
South Australia, Goodwood
Top Venues
2023 Top Venues
2022 Top Venues
2021 Top Venues
2021 People’s Choice
Good Gilbert is the kind of local we all wish we had, with an exciting and well-priced wine list, en pointe simple food and uber-friendly but deeply knowledgeable crew. It’s the platonic ideal of a local wine bar.
Tasmania, Launceston
Top Venues
2023 Top Venues
2022 Top Venues
2021 Top Venues
2020 Top 50
Opening a hospitality venture during a global pandemic is not something that even the most thorough business plan would address (well, they might now). But Ricky Evans and Chanel Parratt’s plans on opening a wine bar – aligning Evans’ Two Tonne Tasmania and Havilah wine labels with like-minded makers – were not going to be…
South Australia, Adelaide CBD
Top Venues
2023 Top Venues
2022 Top Venues
2021 Top Venues
2020 Top 50
2019 Top 50
2018 Top 50
If you judged a book by its cover, you might never peg Hellbound as a serious wine bar. The retro-feel ‘wine bar’ sign that points prospective customers down a flight of stairs may be encouraging, but it speaks more of dive bar than it does Willi’s Wine Bar. There’s a giant caricature of a Rousseau…
South Australia, Lobethal
Top Venues
2022 Top Venues
After working in regional South Australian hotspots Fino Seppeltsfield and Pike and Joyce Wine Room, Josh Kleemann returned to his hometown of Lobethal in the Adelaide Hills and took over a 1960s bank, converting it into a wine lounge with a peaceful, homely vibe. “I saw a lack of local watering holes, especially something focused…
Western Australia, Fremantle
Top Venues
2022 Top Venues
Welcome to Paris in East Fremantle. La Lune captures the spirit of a Parisian neighbourhood wine bar with its nod to unpretentious French bistro style, combining classic, delicious food with a wine list built on quality and seasonal appeal. After years spent living in London, New York and Paris, La Lune sommelier/founder Sam Davies and…
Queensland, South Brisbane
Top Venues
2022 Top Venues
2021 Top Venues
2020 Top 50
2019 Top 50
2018 Top 50
Until he opened La Lune Wine Co, chef Paul Mc Givern was perhaps best known for his exploits on the fine dining scene, notably at East Brisbane’s The Wolfe, which achieved its fair share of critical acclaim. And though McGivern again pushed into that sphere with Corella (now closed), the equation that underpins La Lune…
Western Australia, Perth City
Top Venues
2023 Top Venues
2022 Top Venues
2021 Top Venues
2020 Top 50
2019 Top 50
2018 Top 50
Down a flight or two of stairs, Lalla Rookh Bar & Eating House is tucked well away from the business-minded bustle of St Georges Terrace in Perth’s CBD. Indeed, it is somewhat of a sanctuary from the traffic and the soaring glass and concrete, a relaxed ‘tavern’ (their words) that also has an enviable food…
Tasmania, Hobart
Top Venues
2023 Top Venues
2022 Top Venues
2021 Top Venues
2020 Top 50
2019 Top 50
Kobi Ruzicka had a wine bar concept in the mental planning stage for quite some years, but it was the opportunity to lease the site adjoining his acclaimed Hobart restaurant, Dier Makr, that finally saw it realised. The exit of the café was well timed, as Ruzicka’s restaurant was soaking up a good bit of…
Western Australia, South Fremantle
Top Venues
2022 Top Venues
2021 Top Venues
2020 Top 50
Before Joel Rees and Danielle de Almeida opened Madalena’s, they were Fremantle food truck pioneers. In 2013, they talked the council into approving a permit for their mobile offering of Brazilian Street Food, Comida do Sul. That van became a welcome site on Fremantle’s streets, as well at festivals, weddings and other events. Now with…
Queensland, South Brisbane
Top Venues
2022 Top Venues
2021 Top Venues
2020 Top 50
2019 Top 50
Maeve Wine Bar is housed in somewhat of an enviable site, with it backing onto Brisbane’s thriving Fish Lane precinct, but perhaps more significant is the grandeur of the heritage building whose first floor it occupies. Built in 1929 for the Queensland National Bank, the nods to classical architecture have been given new life in…
Victoria, Fitzroy
Top Venues
2023 Top Venues
2022 Top Venues
2021 Top Venues
2020 Top 50
2019 Top 50
2018 Top 50
If Gertrude Street Enoteca and the City Wine Shop are the pioneers of Melbourne’s drink-in wine stores, then Andrew McConnell’s Cumulus Up and Marion can lay reasonable claim to capturing the essence of what are, somewhat inelegantly, known as ‘barstaurants’. Perhaps this pitching of wine and food in equal measure was not necessarily the intent,…
Western Australia, West Perth
Top Venues
2023 Top Venues
2022 Top Venues
Chris and Foni Pollitt worked in the UK for 20 years and loved the Gastro Pub offering, providing great food with pomp and pairing the dishes with great wines, in comfortable surroundings with professional service and a fun atmosphere. This is the vision they’ve brought to Mayfair Lane, a former nightclub located in the West…
New South Wales, Sydney CBD
Top Venues
2022 Top Venues
2021 Top Venues
2019 Top 50
2018 Top 50
Nick Hildebrandt and Brent Savage are a formidable duo, founding landmark restaurants Bentley Restaurant + Bar, Yellow and Cirrus, as well as their wine bar-slash-restaurant, Monopole. Hildebrandt is one of Sydney’s most celebrated and influential wine minds, crafting lists over the years that have pushed boundaries like few others, while Savage has very much had…
Victoria, Fitzroy
Top Venues
2022 Top Venues
2021 Top Venues
2020 Top 50
2019 Top 50
Daniel Lewis and Simon Benjamin have given the ‘small is beautiful’ mantra somewhat more credence with their charmingly petite all-day eatery, Napier Quarter. Lewis hails from Brisbane, while Benjamin would be known by many a Melburnian as the former part-owner and front man of the much cherished, and also modestly proportioned, institution that is Bar…
Western Australia, Fremantle
Top Venues
2022 Top Venues
2021 Top Venues
A smart restaurant, cutting-edge wine bar, creative cocktail lounge, and all in a stunning heritage building with super-chilled service and vibe? Count us in.
Victoria, Brunswick East
Top Venues
2022 Top Venues
2021 Top Venues
2020 Top 50
Old Palm Liquor is the younger Lygon Street sibling of the already iconic Neighbourhood Wine. Opening in 2013, and expressly reflecting it’s anchoring in the local area, Simon Denman and Almay Jordaan’s Neighbourhood Wine has also become a destination for those further afield, drawn by Jordaan’s Euro-leaning menu and the vast collection of minimal-intervention wine…
New South Wales, Paddington
Top Venues
2023 Top Venues
2022 Top Venues
2021 Top Venues
2021 Best New Haunt
A similar vibe and treasure trove of lo-fi goodies to the Newtown iteration of P&V, but you can stick around here, have a bite and crack a few bottles for a relatively modest corkage.
Queensland, Burleigh Heads
Top Venues
2023 Top Venues
2022 Top Venues
Simple, chic, discrete. Nestled amongst the hedonistic beachside bombast that characterises much of Burleigh Heads on Queensland’s southern border, it’s a surprise to find Paloma Wine Bar offering such a focused wine offering – but then, the vision behind this smart neighbourhood bar comes from a winning team. Paloma is the latest creation of owners…
ACT, Canberra
Top Venues
2022 Top Venues
2021 Top Venues
A drink-in wine store in the best tradition of the genre, warm, welcoming and low on pretence, turning out plates of classic wine bar food paired with leftfield wine
New South Wales, Surry Hills
2022 Top Venues
2020 Top 50
2019 Top 50
When Matt Lindsay and business partner Julien Dromgool took on the lease for the corner site in the recently completed and uber hip Paramount House Hotel, in Commonwealth Street, their aim was not to turn out another Ester, their critically acclaimed and much-loved Chippendale wood-fired fine diner. Well, fine diner is perhaps not truly reflective…
Victoria, Fitzroy North
Top Venues
2022 Top Venues
2021 Top Venues
A great addition to Melbourne’s drink-in wine stores, Public Wine Shop takes things a step further with the delightfully elegant plates of Ali Currey-Voumard in a super relaxed room. The vibe here is organic, hand-made and gently handled – for everything, from cider to food.
ACT, Braddon
Top Venues
2023 Top Venues
2022 Top Venues
A wine bar devoted to riesling? It excites Andy Day, who opened Rizla in Canberra’s inner-suburb of Braddon in September 2019, and its success proves that he’s not alone in adoring riesling. The former restaurant sommelier says it made clear sense for him to create such a specifically-focused tasting room. “It’s because I love riesling,”…
Western Australia, Margaret River
Top Venues
2022 Top Venues
2021 Top Venues
2020 Top 50
2019 Top 50
2019 People's Choice
2018 Top 50
Margaret River’s beloved Settlers Tavern started life in 1977 as a haven for surfers, riffraff not considered suitable for the pub that serviced the then 1000 residents of the township of Margaret River. Since then, the population has grown six-fold, and Settler’s Tavern has grown with it, becoming a live music hub, as well as…
Queensland, Fortitude Valley
Top Venues
2023 Top Venues
2022 Top Venues
2021 Top Venues
2020 Top 50
2020 Maverick
Snack Man is Cameron and Jordan Votan’s moody adjunct to their well-lit, minimalist canteen, Happy Boy. While the latter focuses on dishes from the barbecue and blisteringly hot woks, with craft beer and local small-producer wines, the latter is all, unsurprisingly enough, about snacks, or small plates, with inspiration coming from regional Chinese cuisine, and…
Tasmania, Hobart
Top Venues
2022 Top Venues
2021 Top Venues
2020 Top 50
Chef Matt Breen does compact particularly well. Following on from the success of his lauded bolthole of a restaurant, Templo, in Hobart, Breen went smaller again, opening Sonny in 2019. Both venues accommodate about 20 patrons in a sitting, but at Templo we’re talking tables and chairs and a focus on dining, while Sonny is…
Western Australia, Mount Lawley
Top Venues
2022 Top Venues
2022 Maverick
Keen for a taste of unconventional Italy, where the drinking and dining rules get bent and the room gets rowdy? That’s the spirit a quartet of hospitality professionals want to capture with Testun, a wine bar that steps away from rigid formality to add a splash of fun. Testun has made an immediate impact since…
South Australia, McLaren Vale
Top Venues
2023 Top Venues
2022 Top Venues
2021 Top Venues
2020 Top 50
The Salopian Inn is about as iconic as a regional restaurant gets, setting the tone for McLaren Vale dining for decades. Karena Armstrong took over that revered 1851 homestead in 2013, and she has elevated it even further to be one of South Australia’s most acclaimed dining destinations, as well as a mecca for wine…
New South Wales, Woollahra
Queensland, Noosa Heads
Top Venues
2022 Top Venues
2021 Top Venues
A welcome relief from the conspicuous glamour of Noosa, Theo’s is a warm local for residents and blow-ins alike, with smart and simple food, a super-friendly vibe and some serious product.
Tasmania, Hobart
Top Venues
2022 Top Venues
2021 Top Venues
2020 Top 50
2019 Top 50
Whitney Ball and Tom Westcott had some serious restaurant credentials before they took the lease on the Hobart Hotel some two-and-a-bit years ago. The couple’s last stint before self-employment was at the revered Franklin, with Ball managing the front of house and Westcott on the pans. The move to a pub that has long been…
New South Wales, Marrickville
Top Venues
2023 Top Venues
2022 Top Venues
2021 Top Venues
2020 Top 50
Brothers Julian and Dominic Abouzeid opened their Marrickville wine bar, Where’s Nick, in 2017, with the third brother taking naming rights only. The story, as they tell it, was that the project was built around the three siblings, but Nick insists he never agreed to be involved. As they say, “he [said he] wanted nothing…
Queensland, Albion
Top Venues
2022 Top Venues
A former diesel machine shop tucked away in Albion, an inner-northern suburb of Brisbane, has gained a fresh lease of life as Wineism, thanks to Ian and Liz Trinkle’s bold vision for a very different type of wine shop and tasting lounge. “As a former sommelier in restaurants, I wanted a change, to have more…
Please sign in or create account as candidate to bookmark this job
Please sign in or create account to save this search
Please sign in or create account as candidate to create a resume
