MotherVine

Open seven days and opposite East End Cellars, the best retail wine shop in South Australia, you will find wine bar MotherVine. Owned by Master of Wine David LeMire and sommelier Patrick Madden, you can rest assured that you will find some cult classic wines in their cellar.

They have a section of the wine list with a featured winery from time to time, so it is great to be able to taste a variety of wines, cuvees and vintages from one single winery. They also throw wine dinners with Australian winemakers flying from all states to attend and present their wines. With magnum parties on Fridays as well as live jazz on Sundays, they cook up delicious nibbles from the compact open kitchen, a menu suited to sampling wines with a small plate focus designed for grazing and sharing. A bar I enjoy going to if I want to drink Domaine Roulot, Domaine Dujac, or JJ Prum.

Curated by Pablo Theodoros, Master of Wine David LeMire and Patrick Madden, the list offers most of what a classic wine lover would look for. You can immediately see that this infernal trio aim to showcase the wines they love. Burgundy and Piedmont as well as a killer Riesling selection with verticals of Keller and JJ Prum. They also love to support Australian wines from all corners of the great land down under. Their basic motto is, if the wine is good, regardless of style, they will give it a shot. Expect to find the beautiful Pinots of By Farr (Geelong), the sleek and elegant wines of Mac Forbes (Yarra Valley), the full-bodied​ chardonnays of Shaw + Smith (Adelaide Hills), the local young gun of wine Murdoch Hill (Adelaide Hills) and so many more. If you feel like you can spend $3,000 on a Domaine de la Romanee Conti, or $800 on a village wine from Domaine Armand Rousseau, you might have found your favorite spot in the city.

They run a regular Option Night, a unique MotherVine offering where people can team up with their friends, form groups with quirky wine names and attend blind tastings, a popular event where option questions are asked as the wines are tasted. I have been to a few of these and they are a lot of fun. Passionate discussions light the room and great wines are imbibed.