Glou

Glou bills itself as a “wine dispensary”, a more accurate description of how it operates than “wine bar” or “bottle shop”, even though you can buy wine to drink in or to take away. The difference from the more familiar wine bar-bottle shop is that Glou also bills itself as sustainable and takes that part of its job description very seriously. All the wine here is on tap and, if you want to take some with you – a likely scenario, given the quality of the offer – you’ll take it in a brown glass bottle that you pay an $8 deposit on, refundable on return. No wine bottles are being chucked into the recycling bin here. There’s more to Glou’s sustainable credentials, too. All the wine taps are connected to reusable Keykeg barrels filled with drops from mostly Victorian, always Australian producers who make their wine in sustainable ways, often using organic or biodynamic fruit. The wines are all vegan, too (no animal products are used to “fine” or filter particles of sediment from the juice), as is the bar snack list. 

It might all come across as very worthy (not necessarily a bad thing), but Glou’s owners have sommelier backgrounds and are as focused on flavour and skilled winemaking as they are on sustainable practices. There’s nothing preachy about Glou. Most of the chat at the bar is about the flavour profiles and characteristics of the 15-plus wines on the list, so those sensitive to mixing ideology with imbibing can come here for a couple of drinks and remain oblivious to the fact this good-looking wine bar is going above and beyond in reducing its environmental footprint.