Limited releases, unsung heroes, great wines and a laidback vibe.
A lively wine bar at the Foreshore end of Woodstock, Cellar Collective takes away the mystique and puts the fun back into exploring wine. A “delicious rebellion” is how they describe themselves… a curated chaos of flavour, firelight and fermented genius. The moody charcoal walls are lined with bottle-filled shelves, there’s a leather couch in front of a flickering fireplace, barstools at counters, and leather chairs around tables. With live music evenings, regular wine tastings with winemakers, an easy menu of wood-fired pizzas and bar bites, and staff who share the owners’ passion for undiscovered wine gems, it’s a friendly place for fledgling wine drinkers to find the wines they love, and for long-time wine lovers to happen upon fabulous wines they never knew existed.
Unsung wine heroes
On weekends owners CJ Killian and Anna Moskvitina head out on meandering road trips to a wine region, perhaps Robertson, Elgin or the Swartland, seeking out winemakers you won’t find on a map. They’re looking for wines that are carefully crafted, obsessed over, small producers, winemakers without a marketing budget, single barrels of experimental wines that haven’t been released, wines that aren’t on any lists and can only be bought direct from the cellar. The best of what they discover finds its way back to Cellar Collective.
Stories are what they collect – as well as the wines – and one of the best ways to sample the relaxed vibe at Cellar Collective is to stroll along the shelves with CJ or one of the knowledgeable staff and hear some of those stories as you decide what to taste. On any given day there will be at least 16 wines available to order by the glass, and they keep the price affordable so that you can taste a few over the course of an evening.
Tastings with the winemaker
Every Thursday there’s a deep-dive wine-tasting with a winemaker, telling their stories and sharing their wines. They might have a single wild coastal vineyard, a patch of old vines hidden among fruit orchards or an isolated vineyard on a remote mountain side. Once you’ve sipped, tasted and chatted, the evening slides seamlessly into a relaxed celebration with live music, food, and perhaps a few more glasses of wine.
Good to know The wine-tasting is free, but there is a minimum spend for the evening on food and/or wine of R100 per person.
Food to fuel lively evenings
The wood-fired pizza oven is the mainstay of the food offering – the puffy-crusted pies pair perfectly with the epic wines on offer. There are other wine-friendly bites, too, like charcuterie and cheese boards, Saldanha Bay oysters, biltong and winter-warming soups, among others.
Live music evenings
Lively evenings tend to happen spontaneously at Cellar Collective as live music and good wine leads on to dancing between the tables. Friday night from 6pm is live music with local vocalists and instrumentalists. Saturday night from 7pm is all about jazz.
Bottomless bubbly Wednesdays
When you’ve something to celebrate mid-week, or if bubbles are cause for celebration enough, every Wednesday you can gather your clan and enjoy bottomless bubbly all evening.
Cost R250 per person
Time 4pm – 10pm
Online wine shop
The Woodstock wine bar is the public face of what is evolving into a full-scale online wine shop, stocking the limited-release gems and iconic vintages you taste at the wine bar and delivering them to your door. Ever evolving, they’re building their list as they add new finds and will eventually have up to 300 wines in stock, all of them hand-picked by their team of sommeliers.
A passion for wine, love of a good story and a curious palate is all you need to bring to this down-to-earth celebration of everything grape.
Opening times Tuesday – Friday, 12pm – 10pm
Saturday, 4pm – 10pm
Contact 082 399 7862, hello@cellar-collective.com
Where to find it 111 Sir Lowry Road, Woodstock, Cape Town
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