First Look: Get $15 Bottles at Good Pair Days’ First “Real” Wine Bar

It’s impossible for me to leave the house these days without spending $17. A sandwich sets you back close to $20, coffees start at $6, and the price of a pint is slowly creeping up. Don’t get me started on the price of a Martini!

It seems like if you even think the phrase “inner-city wine bar”, you’re out $70.

Crown Street’s new wine bar Good Pair Days is an antidote.

Good Pair Days has always been a value proposition. The subscription-based online wine retailer was founded in 2014 by three friends, including sommelier Banjo Harris Plane. The goal was to make wine more inclusive, with fun branding, simplified language and entry-level price points. The trio wanted to banish talk of tannins, mouthfeel and other potentially alienating jargon.

After 11 years in the game, the online retailer – which expanded to the UK in 2021 – has just opened its first physical location. It follows the format of Paddington favourite P&V : wine-bar-bottle-shop hybrid, with drink-ready snacks.

Housed in the old Bartolo space, the bar is in a prime corner position next to Bills and across the road from the soon-to-open El Primo Sanchez. The fit-out echoes the Good Pair Days website, with pink subway tiles, terrazzo marble and polished concrete floors. You can sit at one of several low tables hugged by a curved wine shelf, or along the big pink sash windows which open onto Crown Street, looking towards a smattering of outdoor tables.

Naysayers will be quick to say that a Surry Hills wine bar is about as groundbreaking as florals in spring, but few Surry Hills wine bars have a collection as affordable as this.

There are over 150 drops in-store, and counting. Bottles start at $15 and stretch into triple figures, and you’re welcome to pick any bottle off the shelf to open with $30 corkage. The floor staff all have wine know-how – they’re either sommeliers or doing their WSET training – and are on hand to talk you through your choices, or pour tastings to help you decide what you like best.

If you’re not committing to a full bottle, there are 12 pours available by the glass and four wine flights. There’s a tight selection of “non-wine” drinks, including saké, spirits, two cocktails (a Negroni and a citrusy spritz), small-batch non-alcoholics and a tidy (but impressive) mix of beers from small Aussie producers (like Orange’s Badlands and Forster’s Coastal Brewing).

Alongside, the menu is snacky. Iggy’s bread, cheeses, a selection of meat from Cured & Co, tinned seafood aplenty and Gildas. And – as you’d expect for a company that espouses the virtues of good food and wine pairings – there’s a corresponding code to let you know what wines will pair best with your snacks.

All current members – meaning you’ve had at least three bottles delivered in the last three months – get sizeable discounts, too. By the glass, you’re looking at $5 off the non-member price (so your drinks start at 10 bucks). But the real hero? The $0 corkage on all bottles.

Here’s some quick maths for you: a member and their mate could split a $15 bottle of wine and olives, with a slice of Iggy’s bread each, ready to swipe with cultured butter or through the olive brine, for $14 apiece. Maybe I’ll be hungover, but my wallet will be fresh as a daisy and ready to drop $7 on a mocha.

Good Pair Days
355 Crown Street, Surry Hills

Hours:
Daily 11am–10pm

@goodpairdays