The Best Wine Bars in Brisbane
Brisbane's very best vino-pouring hangouts, havens and hideaways.
The Best Wine Bars in Brisbane
Brisbane's very best vino-pouring hangouts, havens and hideaways.
Our love for wine bars in Brisbane is strong and enduring. You could even say we're a bit obsessed. And with grape-based tipples undergoing a bit of a revolution — shifting away from the world of wanky wine-speak, and moving into creating a more accessible wine experience for everyone — it's well-justified.
While you can still find plenty of expense and intimidation in the wine world, you can also find helpful sommeliers and staff keen to impart their knowledge and love of vino, including at the places on this list. From reds to whites and everything in between, we bring to you the best wine bars in Brisbane. Some are old classics, others are fresh, but they all have stellar selections with stunning surrounds for drinking in.
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Located within a weatherboard house in Brisbane’s West End, Bar Francine is one of the biggest surprises Brisbane has. The interior features timber floorboards, rustic furniture and an elegant bar with a dozen or so stools. The windows open to the laneway and on a warm spring afternoon, there are few better seats in Brisbane than one perched up at Francine’s bar with the breeze in your hair.
The food menu is reimagined daily, but expect Mediterranean-inspired dishes — sardines, meatballs and baked artichoke hearts might await you. And like many of the best wine bars in Brisbane, Francine champions small and independent producers from around the country. There’s also a strong focus on the unfamiliar, so be sure to step out of your comfort zone and try something new here.
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South Brisbane got this wine bar in 2017, and we’re very happy to report that they still use the Coravin wine system. It’s basically a very fancy way of preserving wine, while still allowing them to offer rare or aged tipples by the glass. If you’re a fan of your aged classics but either don’t want to or can’t afford to drink a whole bottle, you’re in luck.
As for their vino list itself, the Fish Lane venue dances through international and Australian varietals with ease, offering something for all tastes in its extensive range of vintages. Food-wise, La Lune’s dishes are all geared for the drinks — think charcuterie boards, fresh oysters and kangaroo steak tartare.
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When the wine list is almost as big as a novel, you can be pretty certain that you’ll be able to find something you like. Indeed, there’s nothing restrained about Bacchus, but hey, that’s why we love it. Everything from the food to the drinks to the décor is extensive and opulent. In short, it’s a great spot for a fancy drink with a friend or a special date.
Expect a well-curated list of Italian, French, Greek, New Zealand, German, Austrian and Australian wines — focusing on hard-to-find varietals. Take a dizzying ride through those on offer and marvel at the amount of awards they’ve won for their list (it’s a fair few).
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You won’t have to worry about missing Brisbane’s Wineology when jumping out of your Uber — the giant gold letters on the street frontage will surely let you know you’ve arrived. And thank heavens, because this is one place you don’t want to miss out on. The wine bar has Italian Enomatic wine dispensers, which means it can offer up glasses of wine from perfectly preserved bottles without cracking them open.
Thanks to this, more than 96 options are available by the glass. Choose your drop from the machine, pick either a half or full serve, and return to your table and enjoy. This sounds very simple, but with so many wines available, it’s actually very hard. We suppose you’ll just have to keep coming back.
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This tri-level wine bar and restaurant opposite the Cathedral of St Stephen is a treat indeed. Stepping off the street and into the main entry, you’ll enjoy original timber flooring, arches and bar — a glorious meld of old and new, and the perfect spot for a long lunch.
Malt’s wine list is thorough, and it offers a strong selection by the glass with a couple of exciting Aussie options available. Be sure to ask the team for their larger list, which makes for excellent reading, even if it’ll extend your choosing time. And if you feel like making an evening of it, slip up to the attic for a cheeky degustation dinner with paired wines.
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This Brisbane old dame has been around for many years, doing quiet, sophisticated and exceptionally good Italian fare. With plenty of outside dining for the warmer months and lots of cosy indoor spots for those chilly winter nights, Enoteca should definitely be on your rotation. The fact that it features a restaurant, a wine bar, a basement cellar for private dining and a small wine store is also a drawcard, obviously.
Naturally, their vino selection is an absolute cracker, boasting a strong focus on wines that are made naturally or bio-dynamically. The team takes a lot of pride in the wine list, and can pair a fine drop with whatever food you order.
Image: Nikki To.
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On a leafy corner block, with palms cascading above and summer umbrellas flapping in the wind, Adelita is the perfect wine bar for a casual afternoon drink in Brisbane. The vibe here is warm, friendly and sunny, and with the sliding doors open to the street when the weather allows, you’ll feel like you’re sitting right opposite the beach.
The 150+ wine list is constantly evolving, and to help you pair your meal to your wine, the food menu has in-built pairing recommendations. Try a charcuterie board with a glass of guindillas, a prawn eclair with chablis or fresh oysters with a glass of bubbles.
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Noir is the quintessential neighbourhood wine bar. On the ground floor, you’ll find an intimate bar with enough stools for you and a couple of mates, while a few extra high tops flesh out the room. Upstairs, there’s a small but comfortable loft with some leather lounge furniture and a view of the scene below.
It has a rotating wine list, so you’ll never know what you’ll find until you get there. But the team does focus on local producers, minimal intervention wines and harder-to-find varietals. Trust them to know what they’re doing and follow their advice. The expert team are a big part of what makes this one of the best wine bars in Brisbane.
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With polished concrete walls, soft ambient lighting and elegantly minimal furniture, Brisbane’s Snack Man gives off the kind of vibe you might hope to find in a retro-fitted New York warehouse — with someone playing sax in the corner and room full of movers and shakers. The atmosphere is slick, very slick, and with an enormous back bar with hundreds of bottles of wine staring at you, you know you’re going to get a good drop.
The wine list focuses on bottles from small producers across relatively unknown regions of Europe, while all the big names also get a look at. Snack Man changes it up daily if you’re after a glass, so be sure to ask the staff what they’re pouring that particular day. Beyond wine, it’s got a good range of beer, and the bartenders can whip up all our classic cocktails.
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The space at 22 Wyandra Street in Newstead was never going to stay closed for long. When Carl’s Bar and Bistro shut its doors at the address back in September 2022, the City Winery crew got busy filling the venue with new ventures. First came a seasonal bar and bottle shop over the holiday period, and now Ardo’s is making the spot its own for the long haul.
Ardo’s is both a wine bar and bottle shop, so patrons can peruse its curated range of vino while sipping onsite over pintxos, cheese and charcuterie — or pick up their favourite tipple or a new discovery to take away. Offering a selection that you wouldn’t just find at any bottle-o is a big source of pride, with Ardo’s staff on-hand to chat you through its drops, help you make a pick and impart their expert knowledge.
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Drawing from France’s iconic cafe-wine bars, The Old Seven offers the same intimate feeling and expertly selected vino as the establishments you’d find in Europe. By day, it’s a cafe serving up brunch and lunch dishes to locals. And when the sun sets, it becomes a roaring Brisbane wine bar.
The wine list primarily covers European drops from small producers, but the team is most proud of its rose offerings. It has one of Brisbane’s largest and most diverse rose wine lists — 33 from France and 21 from other wine regions in Europe, Australia and New Zealand. If you’re a fan of this pink-hued drop, this might just become your second home in summer.
Image: Kiel Wode.
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Throw a stone in Brisbane’s inner city and it’ll likely hit a bar. Try to find somewhere that doesn’t just pour wine, but makes it, and it’s a completely different story. Until now, that is. Thanks to the opening of Brissie’s first urban micro-winery in 2019, stomping, and sipping in the shadow of the CBD now go hand in hand.
As well as a barrel room and winery that can double as a function space when each year’s vintage is complete, and a cellar that can also be used as a 20-person private dining room, the site features a 70-seat restaurant that’s open for lunch and dinner. Feast on European eats made with Queensland produce paired with their very own wines for a super local dining experience.
Images: Grace Elizabeth. -
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When you’ve opened an Italian joint with a mean negroni menu, a Chinese Peruvian bar and eatery, and a Palm Springs-inspired gin-pouring garden bar, what comes next? If you’re Vincent Lombino and Jared Thibault, you follow it up with a European-influenced wine bar and wine shop. And you base all four spots in one location, all in Woolloongabba — giving visitors to South City Square a choose-your-own-adventure food and drink experience.
At South City Wine, the food is quintessentially French and the cocktails are inspired by the same locale, but wines are from all over. Yeah, there is a focus on France, but they also give a heap of love to Australian, New Zealand, Italian, German, Austrian, Spanish, Greek, Lebanese, American, South African and Argentinian drops. Grab a seat outside and order some escargots and chenin blank — imagining you’re off in Paris.
Images: Max Homer / Judit Losh.
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If you’re heading on down to the people-watching mecca that is James Street, what better way to look out on the hoi polloi than with a staggeringly great glass of the good stuff in your hand? Cru Bar + Cellar is well known for its exceptional selection of Champagne and sparkling wine — and with an extensive wine list spanning plenty of regions and varietals, you can spend as much time and money as you would like here, likely loving every moment.
A key part of the enjoyment of wine is the food, of course, and Cru does not disappoint. You can snack on olives ($10.50) or nibble on cured salmon ($24.50), which pairs spectacularly with champagne. And if you’d rather munch on a restrained but delightful array of cheeses, including Italian cows’ and ewes’ milk brie, Australian Gippsland blue and Italian pecorino, you can do that too. A spectacular way to spend your Sunday (or any day).
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If you head to Mr Chester Wine Bar & Bistro’s website, you’ll be greeted with a simple, bold statement — “What a wine bar should be!”. And we have to admit, whoever wrote that is bang on. Everything to love about wine bars, be it the ambient lighting, simple European fare, unpretentious staff and soft background jazz, they’ve got it. Oh, and the wine. They’ve got that too, thankfully, in barrel-loads.
The focus here is on Aussie and New Zealand winemakers, while a few from beyond our shores also make the list. It doesn’t matter if it’s a young gun trying to reinvent chardonnay (again!) or a seasoned winemaker who remembers the days when you couldn’t get wine by the glass in Australia — if you’re good enough, you’ll make it on the list at Mr Chester — one of the very best wine bars in Brisbane.
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Behind a big copper door at the heritage-listed National Bank Building in South Brisbane, you’ll find a staircase leading you upstairs to the impossibly elegant, Maeve Wine Bar. It’s all high ceilings and polished floorboards here, with copper finishes and hanging lights — plus, an exposed kitchen where the talented chefs prepare classic European fare.
Maeve serves up wines from every corner of the globe, boasting a well-curated list of everyday drops and a handful of vintage bottles — best saved for celebrations. Head in for a date, or come on your own and grab a glass of chilled grenache at the bar — watching the chefs work their magic while reading a good book. Brisbane wine bars like this don’t need to be enjoyed with others. Sometimes, you just want to take it all in without distractions.
Top image: Snack Man.
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