Drop Shop opens in Brunswick East to simplify wine buying

Unless you really know what you want, buying a bottle of wine can be overwhelming. But Drop Shop, a new Brunswick East bottle shop, aims to simplify the process with an extremely tight selection of bottles categorised by occasion rather than region and varietal. “It’s the only retail category in the entire world that hasn’t iterated how it’s sold,” says co-founder Luke McKinnon, also the founder of communications agency Common State. “I always thought there’s a different way of doing it.” This week he’ll open

Drop Shop, a 60-square-metre Brunswick East wine retailer inspired by convenience stores. There are between 150 and 170 unique bottles for sale at a time, plus a small range of non-alcoholic drinks, RTDs and pre-mixed cocktails. To put it in context, in 2020, the typical Dan Murphy’s stocked 5000 SKUs and Carlton North boutique wine store Rathdowne Cellars has more than 1500 bottles on offer. Curating the range are co-founder Dan Sims and store manager Courtney Keegan, whose wine retail experience spans Dan Murphy’s and

Blackhearts & Sparrows. Sims is the founder of Pinot Palooza and chair of Wine Victoria, as well as an award-winning sommelier with experience at restaurants including Jamie Oliver’s Fifteen in Melbourne. They’ve taken a “ruthless” approach to curation, as Sims puts it. “Every single thing has to fight for its place.” But the real innovation comes from how the wines are presented. Rather than being arranged by the typical variety and region, bottles are laid out in three categories: weekday for those priced $15 to

$25, party for ones that go for $25 to $40, and fancy for everything $40 and beyond. The selection is primarily Victorian and, at open, includes rosé from Tilly J Wines in the Yarra Valley (weekday) and gamay from Sorrenberg in Beechworth (fancy). There’s an emphasis on convenience and making wine retail feel fun. “You can walk into Drop Shop and, within 30 seconds, you could find what sort of style of wine you want within your price point and get out,” Sims says. But

there’s room for the vinophiles, too. “If you want to get down and dirty with the nerdy stuff, we can do that, but that’s not our default setting.” McKinnon says the duo is looking to reinvent the wine retail space in the same way Mecca has for beauty and Up There Store has for streetwear. (Drop Shop’s “Pour Decisions” loyalty program is an unapologetic dupe of Mecca’s, where total spend rather than quantity purchased is rewarded.) They want the Lygon Street shop to cater to

the community and, if the model is successful, plan to scale the business across the country. Drop Shop70 Lygon Street, Brunswick EastNo phone Hours:Mon to Thu 11am–9pmFri & Sat 11am–10pmSun 11am–8pm @dropshopdrinks

Drop Shop, Brunswick East, Lygon Street, wine shop, wine retail, loyalty program, Pour Decisions, Luke McKinnon, Dan Sims, Courtney Keegan