About Us - old

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 over 300 wines, beers & spirits, all hand-selected by our resident Head of Wine.

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. 

You might even decide to try our range of  luxury cheeses, fine charcuterie and all sorts of other delectable delicacies with your drinks. We're a community business, but we try to offer a slice of our life further afield as well, 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.

Please Note:

We operate as a shop and delivery service only - for the time being! We temporarily ceased our bar operations in early 2020, in order to focus on maintaining a safe and efficient retail experience for our customers throughout difficult times.

We look forward to resuming sit-ins when things get back to normal. Check back to this page or to our social channels for updates regarding this.

 

The way in which we recommend our wine makes us stand out. Probably the most asked question we receive is: “can we see the wine list”, to which we always reply: “No, we don't print one”.

Marchtown does not have a wine list for three key reasons:

Firstly - we get new things in all the time, which keeps things interesting and ensures there's no two experiences alike

Secondly - it takes away the temptation of pointing at the first thing you recognise, and it forces you to think about what you want and to discuss it aloud. Sure, picking a wine can be intimidating, but we specialise in keeping it simple, and making advice accessible

Thirdly - new wine 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.

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.

We have been proudly serving our community since 2016, and humbly supported by them along the way. In a typically Glaswegian way, we aim to keep things simple, but special.

• No superiority
• No stuffiness
• No nonsense

We want to offer highest quality wine (and other drinks) at a budget dictated by you, alongside as much advice and info as you could ever need or want.

We strive to only stock low-intervention wines, made in small-scale production, and with the most environmentally kind practices possible. The vast majority of what we stock will tick at least one of these boxes, however we also don't prioritise certain practices or styles to the exclusion of others.

For example, some regions and countries have no choice but to forego Organic status and use pesticides if they are going to successfully make wine at all, but they can still be ethical about it. Equally, some grapes might be too pale in pigment to be made into 'Orange' Wine, but the winemaker might still adopt long periods of skin exposure in the process all the same.

We choose our wines carefully, and love them all equally.

We are also constantly trying to get as close to zero waste as possible. We have four types of recycling collected from our store, and all of our delivery packaging is either re-used or recycled, and any bespoke packaging we use is 100% recyclable, plastic-free and bleach-free.

It means our delivery boxes look cute and quirky, but the conscience rests easy.