Swords Select Wine & Beer
Nothing goes on these shelves that somebody has not tasted, and they run sixty to eighty suppliers at a time with new products arriving every week.
Why go
Anthony runs the counter in Aisle B of South Melbourne Market, plays his own records through the day, and will walk you through six wines for a dinner without any of it feeling like a sale (South Melbourne Market). The buying is not built on a doctrine. It attends to the quality of what is in the bottle and to how the supplier makes it, which in practice means a lot of very small producers and a lot of work. What is reliably there: boutique beer without additives, Victorian wine, and a shelf of spirits including native botanical gin. The part worth knowing about is the refillable wine, sold in swing-top bottles with a three-dollar refundable deposit; returned bottles go to North Melbourne to be sanitised and reused rather than melted down, and the saving on packaging comes off the price. One of the refill suppliers, in the Strathbogie Ranges, has been with the shop fifteen years.
Order this / avoid
- Order: a refill in a swing-top, and bring the bottle back. Something Victorian from the wine shelf. A boutique beer with no additives in it, which is the line they hold across the fridge.
- Avoid: Monday, Tuesday and Thursday, when the stall does not trade. And do not browse in silence, since the whole point of the shop is the person behind the counter.
What locals & experts say
- South Melbourne Market's own trader profile, on the buying rule:
They have 60-80 suppliers at any given time and new products at the Market each week, only products which have been tasted make it onto the shelves.
The market is this stall's landlord, so read it as a well-sourced description rather than an arm's-length review.1 - The same profile, on the refill scheme: the swing-top bottles
include a three-dollar refundable deposit. On return, the bottles are taken to North Melbourne to be sanitised for re-use, negating the energy consumption of being melted down.
Prices across the shop runbetween ten to two-hundred dollars
andthe opportunity for professional guidance and conversation remains the same across the spectrum.
1 - Nobody independent has written about it. No bylined coverage was found in Broadsheet, The Crafty Pint or Beat, and no Melbourne chef names it across 74 picks by 44 working chefs and writers. The bottle shop the industry does name is Bijou Bottle Store. That is why this entry sits where it does.4
Good to know
- Where: Aisle B, South Melbourne Market, 322-326 Coventry Street.
- Timing: Wednesday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday from 8am. No closing time is published anywhere reachable, so treat it as market hours.
- Booking: walk-in.
- Returns: swing-top bottles carry a three-dollar deposit, and they take back plastic six-pack rings for recycling.
- Pairs with: Proper & Son in the Food Hall for the roast roll, and the market itself.
- Diet: not applicable, and nothing is flagged.
- Hygiene: Victoria publishes no venue ratings, only Safe Food Victoria's register of convictions under s.53D of the Food Act 1984, and this venue is not on it.5
Verdict
could-visit — Nothing reaches the shelf here that somebody has not tasted first, across sixty to eighty suppliers at any one time with new products arriving weekly. That is the buying policy stated as a policy, and it is more than most bottle shops will commit to. The rest of the operation runs on the same logic: refillable wines in swing-top bottles with a three-dollar deposit, the empties trucked to North Melbourne to be sanitised rather than melted down, one of those suppliers in the Strathbogie Ranges fifteen years into the relationship, and six-pack rings taken back for recycling. The shelves hold boutique beer without additives, Victorian wine, and a native botanical gin if you need a present. Prices run from ten dollars to two hundred and the advice is the same at both ends. It holds at could-visit for one honest reason: the only detailed account of any of this is published by South Melbourne Market, which is the landlord, and no independent writer has ever covered the shop. Combine it with a roast roll at Proper & Son and the market morning works.