Just In: City Winery Has Gone Into Voluntary Liquidation and Is Closing All of Its Brisbane Venues Immediately

Making wine, not just drinking it, is no longer on the agenda in Fortitude Valley. Five years after opening Brisbane's first inner-city winery, the City Winery team has announced that the company behind the venue, as well as the chain of Ardo's wine bars, has gone into voluntary liquidation. As a result, all of its locations — both City Winery spots and Ardo's alike — are closing effective immediately on Wednesday, September 4, 2024.

In addition to its Wandoo Street base, where it took over Campos Coffee's old 500-square-metre warehouse, City Winery had expanded to Edward Street in the Brisbane CBD. Starting in early 2023, it also launched Ardo's neighbourhood bars, beginning in Newstead, then also setting up shop in Graceville, Hawthorne and Milton.

"I am heartbroken at having to make the incredibly difficult decision to close City Winery and Ardo's. A drastic drop in consumer spending fuelled by the current cost-of-living and interest-rate environment, coupled with increases in labour and operational costs, have all had too great of a compounding impact on our business, along with the historical effects of COVID and lockdowns, for us to continue to operate," said City Winery Brisbane Former Director and CEO Dave Cush.

"The recent opening of The Star at Queen's Wharf was the proverbial final nail — we simply cannot compete with an operation of that scale," Cush continued.

"To our customers and clients affected by this closure, I offer my most heartfelt apologies and thank you for the years of support you've given us. You're the reason we kept going as long as we could."

City Winery's Fortitude Valley location clearly didn't boast its own sprawling vineyard onsite. But, after sourcing grapes from around the country, it was barrelling, bottling and serving vino — and letting locals help with all of the steps in the process (as well as sip it, obviously).

With Ardo's, the company set up neighbourhood wine bars in four busy parts of suburban Brisbane, where patrons could peruse its curated range of vino while getting drinking onsite over pintxos, cheese and charcuterie — or pick up their favourite tipple or a new discovery to take away.

City Winery has closed at 11 Wandoo Street, Fortitude Valley and 162 Edward Street, Brisbane City — and Ardo's Wine Bar has closed at 22 Wyandra Street in Newstead, 335 Honour Avenue in Graceville, 7 Lindsay Street in Hawthorne and 19 McDougall Street in Milton.