Love,

wine · Iconic Matt Swieboda's Crown Lane laneway bar opened in 2010 and remains the single most influential wine room in the country. The list — running close to four hundred bins, with the lowest mark-up at the by-the-glass end — built the template every other Sydney natural-wine bar now copies: tight Loire selection, real depth on Slovenian and Friulian skin-contact, and an Australian section that takes growers like Lucy Margaux, Domaine Lucci and Jauma seriously without making them gimmicks.

The room is twenty-eight seats, the lighting is deliberately bad, and the kitchen turns out a small parade of plates — sardines on toast, beef tartare, pickled mussels — designed to make the wine drink better. It earns the top slot because nothing else in Sydney combines list depth, room intimacy and sommelier honesty at this level.

For the full ranking, see our editorial round-up of the 10 best wine bars in Sydney, the broader Sydney wine bars guide, and our category index of wine bars worldwide.