Independent wine stores give Coles and Woolworths a challenge
THE Colesworth supermarket duopoly may dominate wine retail in this country but independent merchants are fighting back.
THE Colesworth supermarket duopoly may dominate wine retail in this country but Australia’s independent wine merchants are fighting back. This year there has been a particularly hopeful flurry of openings: new wine shops, new cellar bars, all offering an enticing alternative to the chains.
Leading Melbourne independent Prince Wine Store announced last month that it will expand into Sydney, and has hired experienced retailers Jon Osbeiston and Nick Minogue to roll out the Prince’s program of tastings, dinners and classes for Sydney customers.
Meanwhile, Melbourne drinkers in the hipster belt have two new indie retailers to choose from: the very snazzy Wine Republic in Fitzroy and the just-opened Brunswick East Wine in Lygon Street. The city is also home to a swag of new (and newish) caves a manger (wine shops that also serve food, or wine bars that also sell bottles to take away) such as Harry & Frankie in Port Melbourne, Clever Polly’s in North Melbourne, Persillade in East Melbourne and Milton in Malvern.
It’s not just an urban phenomenon: Victorian wine lovers outside the capital are also blessed. New wine shops and cellar bars abound across the state, from Banks Fine Wine in Kyneton and the Woodend Wine Store in the Macedon Ranges to Wine & The Country in Daylesford, Noble Rot in Point Lonsdale, the Independent Wine Store in Rye and Union Street Wine in Geelong.
In Brisbane, Grape Therapy (which describes itself as a “wine merchant and drinking den”) and Malt Traders (“purveyors of small parcel and craft beverages”), both in the CBD, join the relatively new Craft Wine Store in Red Hill as outposts of indie retail in the struggle against the chains.
It’s not just openings. This year also has seen some ambitious refurbishments of existing successful wine business. In Adelaide, East End Cellars moved across Vardon Avenue into bigger premises — complete with eating and drinking area — while the old shop morphed into a smart new wine bar called Mothervine.
And last week in the Melbourne suburb of Balwyn, the d’Anna family opened the latest incarnation of the well-established Boccaccio Cellars business after a $1.5 million fitout — an enormous sign of confidence in the future of independent wine retail.
Anthony d’Anna grew up on this site: his parents opened a deli here in 1974. So he has a good sense of being in the game for the long haul. As we walk around the gleaming new store he points out the CO2 refrigeration, the Fine Wine Room for exclusive tastings and classes, the solar panels on the roof.
“If we were going to expand and refurbish the shop, we weren’t going to do it and not do it properly,” he tells me. “There are nine grandkids in the family now, so we needed to make the business sustainable. You’ve got to make the investment. You’ve got to take the risk. Or you might as well shut the doors.”