Good Brothers Wine Cellars
Every Thursday they open something old out of the cellar and pour it by the glass at cost price.1
Why go
The programme has a name, #finewinethursday, and it is the thing that keeps a 119-bottle cellar moving through a small basement. Star Wine List recorded it in November 2023 and The List confirmed it was still running in May 2026, which is a weekly commitment held for two and a half years.2 Cost price on a bottle a shop would otherwise have to sell whole is the cheapest way anyone in this city gets to taste old wine.
Graeme and Rory Sutherland opened Good Brothers on Dean Street in Stockbridge in 2016 and closed it on 13 May 2023, after seven years, when they decided against renewing the lease.3 The room reopened in the New Town that June, in a basement at the Dundas Street corner underneath the Kweilin Cantonese restaurant, next door to The Wally Dug.4 The brothers now run separate rooms: Graeme has this one and WineKraft on Brandon Terrace, which he opened in early 2021, and Rory has Little Rascal out at Corstorphine.6
The list runs roughly 119 bottles, GBP 27 to GBP 120, most of them between GBP 29 and GBP 55, and it is filed by how the wine tastes instead of where it came from. The eleven headings run from White, Fresh and Crisp
through Wines To Make You Think
to Red, Savoury & Crunchy,
and the shop states the reasoning on the page: The Aim of our wine list is to make things more fun for you, the wine lover. We have classified our wines into style groupings, making it easier to navigate other wines you might like.
5 Eleven of those bottles are skin-contact, which is a whole group of list space given to orange and rosé. Underneath sits a real low-intervention seam bought by grower name, Eric Texier, Eric Thill's Jura, Muchada-Léclapart, Vega Aixalà, Gran Cerdo, Cirelli, Abel Mendoza. Alongside it sit Trimbach, a Merlin Cherrier Sancerre, Fontaine Goby's Chablis and a Raymond Napa Cabernet, so the room is broader than its reputation.
Order this / avoid
- Order: whatever is open on the Thursday. The List describes how that goes:
if you want to geek out on vintages, they're here for it, especially on Thursdays when you can try something special from the cellar at cost price.
1 - Order: out of the orange and rosé group. The shop's own description of it is
Skin contact wines that give that little extra oumpf to you drinking,
which is eleven wines of macerated white, and it is the group that tells you what the buyer actually likes.5 - Order: the Jura. Eric Thill's Savagnin is GBP 70 and his Vin Jaune is GBP 120, which ties the top of the whole list.5 Vin Jaune spends over six years under a film of yeast in a barrel nobody tops up, which is why it tastes of nothing else in the room.
- Order: a Pilot beer, keg or bottle, if you are not drinking wine. Pilot brews it in Leith, and there is Oliver's cider in the bottle. No cask ale.4
- Avoid: arriving hungry. The food is cheese and charcuterie boards with bar snacks, and the room's own advice for anything more substantial is the Chinese restaurant upstairs.2
What locals & experts say
- The List's Eat & Drink 365 guide (May 2026) gets at the thing that decides whether you enjoy a wine shop:
Are the team at Good Brothers super knowledgeable about wine? 100%. Are they wine bores? Far from it. There'll be no judgement if you walk in and ask for a crisp sauvignon blanc on a hot day.
1 - Ruth Spivey, Star Wine List (November 2023), on the buying:
The emphasis here is light on the usual suspects, and heavy on natural wines, with the eclectic list championing young up and coming winemakers from around the world. An ever-evolving list offers 20 well priced wines by the glass, as well as a more extensive collection of over 50 bottles.
Her natural-wine framing describes the room she saw in 2023; the venue's own August 2025 list has roughly doubled and now carries a large classical spine alongside the low-intervention wines.2 - The brothers, on leaving Dean Street (May 2023):
After 7 wonderful years at our cosy Dean Street address, we at Good Brothers Wine Bar have had to take the very hard decision not to renew our lease with our landlords,
and then,Watch this space for what will hopefully be Good Brothers Wine 2.0.
3 - The gaps worth knowing about. Nobody has named an importer, nobody at this address holds a published sommelier credential, and the last by-the-glass count anyone printed is Spivey's twenty from 2023. The buying is evidenced by grower names on the list and by a weekly programme two sources apart, and not by a wine-trade CV.
Good to know
- Hours: the venue publishes Monday to Wednesday 3pm to 10pm, Thursday to Saturday noon to 11pm, and Sunday noon to 7pm, open seven days. Its own contact page also tells you to follow its socials for the day's times, so treat the block as a guide.5
- Booking: none published. It is a small basement, so walk in early or call ahead on the number the site gives.
- Shop or bar: both. You can buy sealed bottles to carry out, and the online store delivers free within Edinburgh. No corkage or drink-in differential is published anywhere, which is the one number a reader of a shop-and-bar entry actually wants.5
- Hygiene: the premises holds no Food Hygiene Information Scheme record.7
- Sites: one room under this name. The Stockbridge original at 4-6 Dean Street closed in May 2023 and a different business trades there now, so a review or a photo tagged Dean Street is about a room that no longer exists. Graeme Sutherland's other shop is WineKraft at 6 Brandon Terrace, and his brother's is Little Rascal on St John's Road in Corstorphine.6
- Getting there: Northumberland Street runs parallel to Queen Street, about five minutes downhill from the east end of Princes Street. The door is at the Dundas Street corner and the room is down the stair.
Jeff's take (his words)
- Note: Multiple recs including Nick nairn
Verdict
should-visit — The Thursday pour is the reason this clears could-visit, and it is a mechanism rather than a promotion: every week they open something old out of the cellar and sell it by the glass at cost price, corroborated by two independent sources three years apart. Cost price on a bottle a shop would otherwise have to sell whole is the cheapest route to old wine anybody in this city runs, and it is the thing that keeps a 119-bottle cellar moving in a basement. The list behind it is the second argument: filed by taste in the shop's own plain-English groupings, eleven skin-contact wines given a section of their own, and a low-intervention seam bought grower by grower with Eric Texier, Eric Thill's Jura, Muchada-Leclapart and Gran Cerdo named, sitting against Trimbach, Sancerre, Chablis and Napa Cabernet. Against Smith & Gertrude, the other shipped Edinburgh wine room in this slice, this one has the more interesting buying and the thinner room; against The Black Grape it has a deeper cellar and no kitchen. It stops short of must-visit on two counts. No importer is named anywhere and nobody here holds a published wine credential, so the buying is evidenced by what is on the list rather than by provenance. And the food is boards and bar snacks, with the room itself sending anyone hungry upstairs to the Chinese restaurant.