The Moon
Patrick Sullivan makes a pinot noir in Gippsland called Gypsy Juice and sells it to this shop and to nobody else.
Why go
Around 400 wines stand on the shelves, twenty of them open by the glass and turned over with the season, and a bottle off the shelf costs the shelf price plus corkage rather than a bar markup (The Moon, Broadsheet). Lyndon Kubis buys it with Mark Nelson and Renton Carlyle-Taylor, and they have four other Melbourne wine shops behind them, so this is a small group rather than one person's cellar. The selection rule is written down: small producers that show minimal winemaker technique, which Kubis puts as a reflection of soil and sky and the four seasons rather than the hand of the man or woman that made it
(Broadsheet). The room is 75 seats of concrete, stone and stained wood by architect Camilla Burke.
Order this / avoid
- Order: whatever is open by the glass, then ask for the Gypsy Juice. Eat a toastie, the brisket and jalapeno one, or the Meatsmith charcuterie and the cheese plate. Lamb ribs with fennel if you want something bigger.
- Avoid: Mondays, and treating it as dinner.
What locals & experts say
- Lyndon Kubis, co-owner, to Broadsheet (2017): he buys for
a reflection of soil and sky and the four seasons rather than the hand of the man or woman that made it.
1 - Mark Nelson, co-owner, in the same piece, on how much explaining they intend to do:
Drinking booze is supposed to be fun,
though if you want tonerd about it
they will.1 - Broadsheet's venue page counts about 400 wines with twenty rotating by the glass, and notes the takeaway price is discounted against drinking in.2
- No critic has reviewed it since it opened. Time Out Melbourne, Good Food and Broadsheet were checked on 1 August 2026 and the substantive coverage is all from 2017. No chef in Melbourne's 74-pick corpus names it either. The rung rests on the buying.
Good to know
- Where: 28A Stanley St, Collingwood, off Smith Street. Broadsheet's 2017 piece says 28; the venue says 28A.
- Timing: closed Monday. Tuesday to Thursday and Sunday 3pm to 10pm, Friday and Saturday 1pm to 11pm.
- Booking: taken, and walk-ins too.
- Bottle shop: yes, and drinking a shelf bottle in costs corkage.
- Food safety: no entry for this business on Safe Food Victoria's register of convictions as at its 21 July 2026 update.4
- Near MCEC: no. Collingwood, about 4km from South Wharf.
Verdict
should-visit — Worth the detour if wine is the point of the evening. Around 400 bottles line the shop, twenty of them open by the glass and rotated with the season, and you can drink anything off the shelf for corkage rather than a bar markup. What makes it more than a good shop is the buying. Lyndon Kubis, who runs it with Mark Nelson and Renton Carlyle-Taylor, describes what he is after as 'a reflection of soil and sky and the four seasons rather than the hand of the man or woman that made it', and the consequence is concrete: Patrick Sullivan in Gippsland sells his Gypsy Juice pinot noir to this shop and nowhere else. Food is toasties, Meatsmith charcuterie and a cheese plate, so eat first or eat lightly. The caution is currency. The detailed reporting is from the opening in 2017 and nobody has reviewed it since, so the rung rests on a buying position and a rotation policy the venue still states rather than on a recent verdict.