Bodega Wine bar to open at Weir Mill
"We live in a country where a pint of lager is touching £7 now and a large glass of wine is £15+, so we need to find creative ways of making it more cost-effective for people to eat and drink out."
That's Tom Wilmot, co-founder of Bodega, on why Stockport's newest wine bar will be offering something a bit different. It's opening at Weir Mill this summer, and alongside a glass of something nice, it's also opening a wine vault.
For a monthly membership fee, you can store your own bottles at Bodega, which could be anything from a case of decent Rioja, or six bottles of Aldi's finest (with a promise of no judgement) and drink them by the glass whenever you fancy for a small corkage fee. The bar will host live music, tapas and sharing plates, washed down by your favourite wine to by the glass. Wilmot and his team reckon it's the first "cellar club" of its kind in the UK, and having not come across anything like it myself I'm inclined to believe them.
Bodega will introduce its concept bar to Stockport this summer, offering a list by the glass that includes easy midweek sips to natural and low-intervention bottles, cold lager on tap and charcuterie and sharing plates to go with it. There's also a small retail corner if you want to take something home that isn't sat on a supermarket shelf.
The vault itself is going into the Engine Room at Weir Mill, a space that dates back to the early 1800s and originally housed the boiler that powered the whole mill. It's being fitted out with Scandi furniture and a temperature and humidity-controlled vault with room for 1,500 bottles, which is a proper glow-up for a room that used to house industrial machinery.
Wilmot's explains why Bodega and Weir Mill make the perefect home "Bodega is about capturing that feeling you get in the best little wine bars across Europe - relaxed, social and full of life. It's a space for the neighbourhood, whether you're popping in for a glass after work or staying all evening. The cellar club concept adds a genuinely new dimension - we believe it's the first time something like this has been brought to the UK, and it gives people a sense of ownership and a reason to keep coming back, whatever their budget. Weir Mill is exactly the right place for it."
Weir Mill is the old mill building down by the River Mersey being redeveloped by Capital&Centric, and Bodega joins a line-up that already includes Jane Eyre, Social Trattoria and Rita Rays.
Bodega opens this summer at Weir Mill, Stockport. Follow along at @bodega_wines for opening dates.
