About
WHAT IS MARCHTOWN?
Marchtown is both a shop and a bar located in the heart of Strathbungo, in the leafy south side of Glasgow. It keeps an ever-changing range of more than 500 wines, beers & spirits, all hand-selected by our resident Head of Wine, and our expert team.
Being a shop, you can always enjoy these in the comfort of your own home, but we welcome guests from near and far to drink in our bustling upstairs bar, our intimate Snug Bar – or even outside on our sun-facing, metropolitan terrace (when the Glasgow weather permits!).
You might even decide to try our range of luxury cheeses, fine charcuterie and all sorts of other delectable delicacies with your drinks. Keen to learn a little bit more about it all? Why not partake in one of our specialist tasting events!
We're a community business, but we try to offer a slice of our life further afield, so if you can't make in to see us, we also have an online ordering and delivery service, sending expertly curated cases of wine to every corner of the UK.
SOME HISTORY
The name 'Marchtown' was long ago used to describe our area of Strathbungo, but fell out of use. Although still commonly referred to as a 'village', settlements here at Strathbungo predate the modern sprawl of the city of Glasgow by hundreds of years, and the area is rich with local history.
While it currently represents a modern cultural hub, full of community ventures, art spaces, venues, parks and architecture, back in the day, the village sat upon a meeting point of several old parish boundaries – or 'marches' – and was commonly known as Marchtown.
WHY SHOP WITH US?
The way in which we recommend our wine is what makes us stand out. Probably the most asked question we receive is: “can we see the wine list”, to which we always reply: “No”. There are three key reasons why:
1 - We get new things in all the time, which keeps things interesting and ensures there's no two experiences alike.
2 - Printing new lists every day would be a lot of wasted paper! All you need to do is describe what you're after, set us a budget, and we'll do the rest.
3 - It takes away the temptation of choosing the first thing you recognise, and forces you to really think about what you want - and maybe to try something new! Sure, picking a wine can be intimidating, but we specialise in keeping it simple, and making good advice accessible.
PEOPLE + PLANET
Like everyone with their head screwed on correctly, we are super concerned about our impact on the environment, both locally and globally. As we are a wine merchant based in Scotland (a country too cool to produce its own wine), there are some corners we simply cannot cut, so we strive to make the difference where we can.
All of our packaging is bleach free, recycled, and recyclable, we simply don't do single-use plastics (so please bring your own carrier bags!) and we are always endeavouring to get as close to zero waste as we possibly can. To offset the inevitable impact we do have, we are a partner of the 1% for the Planet scheme, which gives a little bit of everything we make to environmental causes.