South West Wine Shop scores big in esteemed Gourmet Traveller awards

A new wine bar in Busselton has won one of the country’s most prestigious awards. The South West Wine Shop was named Australia’s wine bar of the year in the Gourmet Traveller awards announced this week. The business only opened six months ago. The store sits next to Busselton Pavilion, with both businesses falling under Perth hospitality veteran John Parker’s Parker Group, which includes Perth offerings Dandelion, The Standard and The Royal. South West Wine Shop manager Hayley Ward was over the moon with the award, which she said was a testament to the community’s support for the new venue and Mr Parker’s vision. “We are just totally shocked, but so happy,” she said. “It’s so wonderful to be recognised in such a short space of time. It’s such a big win.” The shop is open from 11am until late daily, giving shoppers a chance to buy drinks to take next door or stay on and enjoy food curated by the Parker Group’s Brendan Pratt. The group’s head of wine Cyndal Petty was the mastermind of the wine list, praised by Gourmet Traveller as reflecting a “joyous attitude”. “Whether you’re chasing hard-to-find bottles from local vignerons . . . or benchmarks from further afield, the shelves and fridges here are all-killer, no-filler,” the magazine gushes in its September edition. “South West Wine Shop looks like it’s going to be around for both a good time as well as a long time.” Ms Ward said the venue also offered masterclasses, a weekly wine club, and held space for other producers who lacked cellar doors of their own. She told the Times the broad array of options was one of the bar’s strongest points. And although Gourmet Traveller featured the South West Wine Shop in its magazine, she said it was the overall competitiveness of the new offering that likely got it across the line ahead of numerous other worthy WA hospitality venues — some of which had provided inspiration for the wine shop at the startup stage.