Grapes & Soda opened as Vancouver's first natural wine bar, a fact the Georgia Straight's wine bar guide still leads with, and a decade of imitators has not produced a better version of the idea. Twenty five dim seats behind a side door on West 6th, a list of low intervention bottles, and one soda cocktail that changes daily. That is the whole pitch, and it is enough.
The Infatuation praised cocktails built with things like sassafras smoke, kombucha, and salty rice, which captures the kitchen brain at work here. This is the wine bar for people who ask questions; Bar Susu across town is the one for people who want the playlist louder.
Fair warning on cost: reviewers call the portions fashionably tiny and the bill pricey. You come for two glasses, three plates, and a long conversation, not dinner.
The room is tiny and means it. Bar seating dominates, the lighting sits at candle level, and reviewers keep reaching for the same comparison: a Japanese listening bar's intimacy applied to wine. Visits stretch 90 minutes to three hours without anyone noticing.
The crowd is date night and wine trade, with groups of five or more asked to email ahead. Friday and Saturday fill by 7pm. Tuesday through Thursday the bar is yours, and the staff have time to walk the list with you.
It shares a wall and a founder lineage with Farmer's Apprentice next door, per the Georgia Straight, and the smartest evening in South Granville is still dinner there followed by the side door.
What to order
- 01
The Daily Feature Soda Cocktail
- 02
A Low Intervention Orange Wine
- 03
House Smoked Castelvetrano Olives
- 04
Warm Chocolate Cookie, Roasted Coconut Ice Cream
