Vienna Wine Bars

Last update: March 25, 2026

Few cities have such a strong connection with wine as Vienna. It’s not just about consumption, but also production: in fact, within the state territory (Vienna is one of the states of the tiny Austrian federal republic) there are vineyards and wineries, including one that is even municipally owned (Weingut Cobenzl). Walking through the scenic hills northwest of the city, you come across heurige, establishments with tables often outdoors where you drink and eat (at often expensive prices) the owners’ products and here, it must be admitted, the quality of wines is certainly not impressive.

The concept of fine wine in Austria is important, in the sense that there are two distinct categories of wines: everyday wine, often served in beer-like mugs and mixed with sparkling water to form white spritz; and the high-level bottles we talk about in this blog. If heurige and Viennese bars, whose charm I will never deny, specialize in the first type of drinks, there are also excellent wine shops that deal with the second. Perhaps, given the local wine tradition, it would be reasonable to expect a wider selection of wine bars. But options exist and here I point out the best ones.

Wein & CO – The Mainstream Wine Shop

Wein & CO is by far the most widespread wine shop chain in Austria. It’s primarily a retailer (where I also purchased a nice bottle of Syrah), but in many sales points it also offers wine bar service. The selection is wide, from bubbles to reds, through whites and rosés.

In the past, the menu, identical for almost all sales points and anyway viewable store by store on the company website, changed every month, providing exciting options. Now rotations are rarer, and it’s a shame. However, the selection is still among the best in all of Vienna, certainly the one where the average quality is highest.

These aren’t adventurous glasses, Wein & CO is a “didactic” wine shop, in the sense that it offers classic wines from the most renowned areas (for example white Bordeaux) both locally and internationally. I don’t find it a defect at all: welcome are places that offer so many excellent Smaragd wines. Moreover, the possibility of buying half a glass makes even wines with otherwise prohibitive costs approachable.

Water usually comes with the wine. There’s no bread instead, but the menu offers some snacks. The service is professional, but the atmosphere varies greatly based on the sales point you’re in. Here’s the ranking of the best (in Vienna):

1. Stephansplatz – The flagship of Wein & CO wine shops. Very central, with elegant interiors and a (lived-in) long bar counter. Here the menu is always the most well-stocked and on floor -1 there’s a wine shop with various bottles for sale.
2. Schottentor – Recently renovated. A small replica of the Stephansplatz location. Here too there are bottles for sale, but in smaller quantities.
3. Hietzing – My alternative option to Stephansplatz, especially because I live nearby. There’s a nice patio, but the atmosphere is ruined by early 2000s furnishings and especially by the background music (often completely off-topic and intrusive) played by the managers. Excellent bottles for sale and a must-stop for aperitif after a walk in Schönbrunn.
4. Mariahilfer Straße – The only one of the four I don’t recommend, also because it doesn’t have the same rich menu as the previous ones, but an alternative, reduced, impoverished version. The few tables indicate that the location is designed more as a shop than as a wine bar. Moreover, it’s not particularly accessible (it’s on the first floor of a building) in a space essentially without windows. A bit like a jail.

• Great for those who: want excellent Austrian and international wines and appreciate a wide choice, based especially on established big names.

Recently I’ve tasted both Knoll wines and other wines that then I encountered again at MondoVino 2025.

Pub Klemo – The Indie Wine Shop

Let’s head to the very pleasant fifth district and we’ll find Pub Klemo. Here the selection doesn’t chase the fashion, never dear to me, of natural, opaque, orange, oxidized, boring wines, but it’s not classic either. It’s instead in line with the search for terroir wines, born from low-intervention philosophies and not enslaved to mass taste. A wine shop that Andrew Jefford would like, if we want to put it that way.

The real asset of this wine shop are the weekly tastings: with this frequency the wine shop offers six half glasses of red and white wines by theme. This way I’ve tasted an excellent selection of Marcel Deiss and some incredible pre-2012 Rieslings, just to give two examples. The tasting is available every day (the place is open from Monday to Saturday) for six days without time limitations, the following week the theme changes.

Indeed, I’ve found these tastings often interesting, while the à la carte menu is a hodgepodge of names now permanently established in the wine shop’s selection, unsold glasses from previous weekly tastings and bottles too old to be good. The staff is decidedly passionate and it’s a pleasure to chat with them. Appropriate glasses and water, plus the possibility of buying something to eat, complete the profile of this wine shop which is undoubtedly a very serious operation.

I also find the décor splendid. The place is small, with lots of wood and a warm atmosphere: a room and a half (because it also contains the bar counter) and tables that each reproduce the wine cartography of various countries are enough to give character. The prices are fair and, for those who want, crossing the street there’s also the shop where you can buy bottles – as well as another shop in the very central first district.

• Great for those who: love terroir wines, have an Andrew Jefford approach, want to enjoy an authentic wine shop.

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Un post condiviso da Agostino Bertolin (@notastingnotes_)

Recently I also attended a wonderful tasting of wines from the Alsatian winery Marcel Deiss (and if only there were more wine shops that offer focuses on such deserving wineries!), which was preceded by the one on Beaujolais and Grüner Veltliners.

Heunisch & Erben – The Restaurant Wine Shop

It can’t not be mentioned right after Pub Klemo, since I believe it has at least one owner in common and certainly a good portion of the by-the-glass and bottle selection. We’re in the – in my opinion – very fascinating third district, very central (Landstrasse station is a few minutes’ walk away) and we’re definitely in a restaurant. A restaurant that however also has an enormous (at least 80 wines) by-the-glass selection.

I’ve been there both to drink and eat and the string of options can intimidate, also because these aren’t classic names, you often enter that fascinating but not immediately interpretable undergrowth that we also find at Pub Klemo. The food is very well made and perhaps it’s worth visiting this place more for the dishes than for the glasses. However, I’ve always been treated splendidly whatever the nature of my final bill.

The furnishing of this place is very intentional rather contemporary and the type of clientele reinforces the idea of a serious but relaxed restaurant. The prices are medium-high, but justified by quality. Here, perhaps there remains a bit the sensation, also perceived at Pub Klemo, that certain bottles are past their prime to be served and that when a producer, due to his winemaking philosophy, deviates strongly from the standard of his area of origin, this should be noted on the menu.

Great for those who: want to eat very well, drinking well. Love contemporary restaurants.

Winzerkönigin – The Austrian Wine Shop

Returning to the Pub Klemo area, on Wiedner Hauptstrasse we find Winzerkönigin, a place specialized in Austrian wines. Here too it’s possible to eat: I’ve never done it, but I’d say it’s a different and inferior ambition compared to that of Heunisch & Erben. The glasses offered don’t rotate often, but they’re a decent sample of local production.

Not a must (also for the furnishings not particularly warm, though certainly not terrible), but an optional stop, if you want to get to know Austrian wine a little better.

Great for those who: seek Austrian wines, in a very Austrian place.

Recently here I’ve tasted:

• Chardonnay Schwoga – Weingut Schweighofer: Surprisingly pleasant. Taut, precise. Very acidic, but it’s an acidity that drives the sip, alive, not just an electric jolt. Aromas of apple, flint and white flowers that carry through faithfully on the palate as well. Clean and graceful.
• Sauvignon Blanc – Urban: Boring. Understated but not unpleasant aromas of Golden Delicious, whitecurrant and greengage, identical on the nose and in the mouth. Clean, but with a slightly tart finish.

Dosage Champagner Bar – The Champagne Bar

First district, you’ve visited a museum or taken a tour of the center (even though the center for Viennese is more on Mariahilfer Straße than at Stephansplatz) and you’re looking for a glass, but not of Austrian wine. The small Dosage Champagner Bar might be right for you. Very modern, but still warm, also thanks to the presence of the owner, an interesting character.

The by-the-glass selection isn’t very vast, but neither banal and, in general, here I’ve always drunk well or even very well. The prices are those of Champagne, plus the surcharge that anyone managing a Champagne Bar always adds, plus a small extra, because you never know. The service is correct and the type of wine shop plus its location attracts many tourists, but, precisely because the small dandy who manages the operation is certainly not an introvert, there are also quite a few regular customers. In short, you won’t feel like cows in a milking parlor.

Great for those who: want to drink non-Austrian wine in the historic center, love Champagne, love a place with character.

Recently here I’ve tasted:

• Tradition Brut Champagne N.V. – Rémy Massin et Fils: Incredibly fresh. Green apple, pear and lemon pith on the nose. The bubbles are irregular in shape, almost clumsy, but they pile up irresistibly. Medium body, acidity that carries the sip, an overall sense of cleanliness and lightness.
• Extra Brut Champagne Premier Cru 2015 – Froment-Griffon: At first I thought: here we go with yet another over-evolved Champagne. And indeed it is, with a nose of white yogurt, cottage cheese and yeast. But its real quality is the perlage. Then on the palate comes an acidic note of fresh apple and asparagus that cuts through the opulent, almost haunting aromas of evolution. A ray of light in the dusty velvet. Savoury, deeply satisfying finish. Bravo.

Vinothek W-Einkehr – The Leftover Wine Shop

Not far from Dosage Champagner Bar, there’s Vinothek W-Einkehr. This historic place has gone through some vicissitudes over the years. Until about five years ago, it was located closer to Schwedenplatz, in cramped but busy and very recognizable premises.

In that phase of its life, Vinothek W-Einkehr mainly served tourists and its Austrian wine tastings were a sure way to interest friends and relatives who came to visit us for the first time. Speck and local cheeses were obviously part of the equation. Now the place, despite moving only a few hundred meters, finds itself in a much more secluded position, the premises are spacious but result emptier and more anonymous, certainly the clientele seems diminished.

I’m not aware of the reasons for the move, but the wine shop lost out. Today as then the owner, with commendable passion, promotes little-known wines. Which theoretically is a positive approach, but it’s hard to explain why, for a few euros difference, one should taste a good Grüner Veltliner from the uncharacteristic Weinviertel region and not an excellent example from Kamptal or Wachau — Grüner Veltliner being a grape that, as the Falstaff Grüner Veltliner Festival 2026 compellingly demonstrated, reaches its highest expression in the right terroir.

In short, you don’t drink badly (and prices are correct), but they seem often leftover glasses, proposed by someone who looked for a good deal more than a good bottle. Also missing the atmosphere of the previous location, relegating this wine shop to a secondary option seems only necessary.

Great for those who: want wine without pretensions or are looking for decent deals.

VIS A VIS – The Small Wine Shop

This is more a divertissement than a real option. In a side street not far from Stephansplatz you’ll find VIS A VIS, a very small place, which boasts about fifteen wines between whites and reds, all Austrian with a focus on Viennese ones. The owner is an integral part of the place, which is very, very, very Viennese.

The wines almost never rotate, eternal is the red Trilogie, for example. They also prepare small dishes, cold cuts and local cheeses. I’ve never found glasses of particular interest, but it’s an excellent destination for tourists not particularly interested in wine, but curious to see the character of a real Austrian place.

The wooden interiors are in fact warm and dated, the white tiles sad and dated, the style straightforward and at the same time cordial and well, yes, obviously that’s dated too. A curiosity for those visiting.

Great for those who: visit Vienna and want to experience a very Viennese place.

Weinskandal – The Natural Wine Shop

Let’s conclude with a wine bar I don’t love. It’s in the seventh district, very close to Mariahilfer Straße in a splendid place with large windows facing the street. Everything perfect, except the wines.

It’s in fact a wine shop that proudly claims its passion for natural, fashionable, all very similar to each other wines. I recognize their commitment in organizing events with producers and certainly there’s genuine passion behind this so trendy operation, but I find this “Taliban-like” attitude towards what we can call “natural little juices” very closed and forced, while the beauty of wine is precisely its diversity.

We won’t meet at Weinskandal, but, if you’re part of the sect, this place won’t disappoint you.

Great for those who: love natural wines.

If you’re into natural wines, I’ve also picked the best natural wines I have tasted.

Here instead you’ll find the difference between red vermouth and Martini.

If you want to discover the best wine shops of San Daniele del Friuli, click here — and here for those in Pordenone.