What makes a great wine bar?

A great wine bar is more than a place to drink. It is where range, service, and context come together to create memorable experiences. The best wine bars distinguish themselves with an unequalled selection by the glass, carefully curated lists that balance accessibility with discovery, and staff who make wine approachable without pretension. Just as important is context: whether serving tourists eager to explore, locals seeking something rare, or niche audiences drawn to unique regions, success depends on offering a clear point of difference. From Scandinavia to New Zealand, the wine bars that thrive are those that balance breadth with relevance, and expertise with warmth.

Recently my wife Noy and I were travelling in Scandinavia. On most of our holidays we focus on winery visits to build up our knowledge of the endless range of world wines. This trip was different. For a start, due to the cold climate, Scandinavia is hardly a wine producing location (although small scale production for local consumption does date back centuries and today with global warming something of a viticultural revolution is beginning). Secondly, our trip was quite short and focused on a quick exploration of what each capital has to offer.

Retail wine in Finland, Sweden and Norway is strictly controlled by a government monopoly – you can only buy wine for home consumption at the government monopoly shop, and the location and operating hours may not be inconvenient. The monopoly purchasing practices (‘we will buy x at y price, take it or leave it’) also seem to limit the available range, and you are highly unlikely to find boutique or small producer wines on offer as you may do in a specialty retailer in other countries.

In these circumstances it becomes imperative to find a good wine bar. On our journey we found two great wine bars with polar opposite approaches. The first of these was Vin Bjorvika near the Opera House in Oslo offering 130 wines by glass and over 600 by the bottle from around the world. These ranged from basic-entry level, but interesting wines (because not always from the big producers you’d see on restaurant wine lists), through to Grand Cru Bordeaux and Burgundy. The venue was large, but service was friendly and unpretentious. A limited range of food was available to accompany the wine, which we didn’t try but read good reviews about.

The second was out in the new Copenhagen suburb of Orestad, offering a very limited selection of mainly Sardinian and Ligurian wines and food, called Bea Bar Italian Wine and Deli (Bea is the name of the owner’s dog). A small cosy venue with friendly quite personal service, the customer ethos of the owners is a sharing of themselves and their culture as much as their wine and food. I interviewed one of the owners and you can read this interview in my blog next week.   

We enjoyed our wine experiences at both of these venues very much. But it really got me thinking about what makes a great wine bar. The obvious first point is that a wine bar needs to offer something more, and something different than what you will find on offer in any local pub. I have not the slightest interest in going to a wine bar to taste or drink the same high production entry level wines on pour in the nearest hotel bar. A great wine bar must establish a significant point of difference. For a central city location which will cate for both locals and tourists this might mean a large range of wines by the glass but the range must include offerings at different levels of quality and price. Vin Bjorkiva achieves this with 130 wines on offer from all around the world at different levels of quality, and a much greater range by bottle. The location and size of this operation enable the glass pours to be offered without any special technology.

Noble Rot in New Zealand’s capital Wellington, a fine dining restaurant as well as a wine bar, has a similar approach with over 80 international wines by glass and more than 800 in total. The smaller location and size require the use of technology to provide such a large glass pour selection and Noble Rot use Coravin to dispense the more expensive wines on the list. This is without doubt my favourite NZ wine bar.

Of course, no wine bar can succeed on range alone. The critical factor is the staff — attentive, helpful, and able to make wine accessible without pretension. Great service means guiding guests through unfamiliar regions, explaining styles in clear language, and offering recommendations that match both palate and occasion. The best wine professionals translate technical knowledge into enjoyable conversation, ensuring that every guest feels included in the experience. In this way, staff are not just servers but interpreters of the cellar, turning a long list into a memorable journey in the glass.

Context is very important for a Wine Bar’s success. I think of The Winery in NZ’s prime tourist hotspot Queenstown, which offers 60-80 NZ wines by the taste or glass with Enomatic, and over 1000 NZ wines by bottle. It’s a great wine bar – for the tourist - who can explore in a cost-effective way a huge range of the great wines New Zealand has to offer. But the only time I, as a NZer will go there is to take an overseas visitor. I’ve probably tasted most of the 60-80 taste or glass wines - many of which could be purchased at a supermarket - already.  The tourist context is necessary for this bar’s success.

A few years back a similar venture opened in my small hometown of Martinborough, called the Wine Bank (located in an old Bank building). This offered about 60 wines by the glass under Enomatic, of which about half were local Wairarapa wines. It was less successful for three reasons. First, Martinborough doesn’t have a fraction of the Queenstown tourist throughput. Second, the mostly small, local wine producers are closely co-located around Martinborough, so you could easily get around half a dozen or so in a day by bicycle and often taste for free. Third, it had little to offer locals already familiar with local and NZ wines. In this context the Wine Bank simply failed to establish its point of difference! What might have made it successful, would have been the acquisition and buildup of a library stock of aged wines. In NZ, finding wines with bottle age is a challenge – only a few, mostly large producers hold and sell library stocks - mainly because they need to sell the current vintage to meet the costs of the next one! I think if I was to open a wine bar in a small NZ locality like Martinborough, offering a range of aged wines under Enomatic or Coravin would be the way to go.

The other route to a point of difference – especially for smaller venues focused more on local customers is to occupy a distinct, ideally unusual niche. Bea Bar Italian Wine & Deli does just that in two ways. Firstly, by representing less well-known wine regions, in this case, Sardinia and Liguria. Secondly, by focusing on small but quality producers whose wines are less likely to be found even in a specialty retail wine shop. In a sea of Italian restaurants offering the usual suspects like Chianti and Montepulciano Bea Bar is a great wine bar despite the quite small range of wines on offer because it occupies a unique niche which can appeal as much to the visitor as to the local. The challenge to remain interesting to local customers will be to change the wines periodically.

What this journey through Scandinavia — and my comparisons back home in New Zealand — made clear is that a great wine bar is defined by more than just its list. Range matters, whether it’s 130 wines by the glass in Oslo or 80 at Noble Rot in Wellington, but range alone is not enough. The real point of difference comes from curation, context, and above all, service. Staff who are attentive, approachable, and able to translate technical knowledge into clear, enjoyable conversation make wine accessible and memorable. They turn a long list into a guided journey, ensuring that every guest feels included.

In tourist centres like Queenstown, breadth and discovery are the draw. In smaller towns like Martinborough, success depends on offering something locals cannot easily find — perhaps aged wines or rare imports. And in niche venues like Bea Bar, personality and cultural storytelling create a unique identity.

Taken together, these experiences underline a simple truth: the best wine bars succeed when they balance range with relevance, and expertise with warmth. They are places where wine is not just poured, but shared — where every glass carries both quality and meaning.

What do you think makes a great wine bar?  

About the author

John Penney is a wine experience guide based in Martinborough, New Zealand. His lifelong passion for wine has been deepened through extensive international wine travel, formal wine study (WSET3) and a career in adult learning. Through his Martinborough-based business wineinsights, he provides exceptional wine tour, wine-tasting and wine education experiences for wine lovers and enthusiasts.