Petition Wine Bar Perth – My Kind of ‘Library’

I couldn’t help but have a Charlie & The Chocolate Factory moment upon setting foot in the Petition Wine Bar & Merchant in the beautifully restored State Buildings on the corner of Barrack and St Georges Terrace in the Perth CBD. The ‘wine library’ as they refer to it has floor-to-ceiling shelves stocked with a glorious array of wines and one of those stepping ladders with wheels on the bottom – this was definitely my kind of version of the candy shop in the Willy Wonka movie. I could just picture the below happening…

 Mr. Spittoon and I hardly venture into the city these days, however we had to do some wedding bits and pieces in Leederville so we thought we may as well make the most of the trip. I had seen Petition around the place on social media and I thought it would be a good spot for a wine and some nibbles. It was a Saturday afternoon when we went and it was dead quiet, just how I like it! It meant we had the entire wine library to ourselves. I told Mr. Spittoon I had booked it out for him, because he’s not big on crowds and waiting in line for drinks 😉

The Location

I have to admit, I’m not up with my history on the Perth CBD but it’s quite clear that the buildings that house Petition and a number of other venues are heritage buildings. The lovely lady in the wine bar explained to us that they use to be government offices. Much too gorgeous for government offices if you ask me, I’m glad we all get to enjoy them now. Smart move guys!

Within the 3 interconnected buildings there’s a hotel (COMO The Treasury) and various retail and eating/drinking spots. You can check out the full list of what’s in the State Buildings here.

The wine bar and merchant is inside the building and overlooks a courtyard with a big beautiful tree in. The windows and whole feel of the place gives me a New York-loft style ambiance. It’s funky and cool, yet laid-back and hipster.

The Wine Library & Merchant

Petition is not just your standard wine bar, it’s also a bottleshop and a pretty fancy one too. I love the floor to ceiling shelves down the back full of wines, and the chalkboards with little shelves for the wines. I could have spent a good hour just perusing all the wines as they have a great selection of local and international wines.

There were still a number of empty shelves which made me a bit upset – fill them up guys! On the bottles there are 2 prices in white pen – one for the dine in price and one for the takeaway price. While I love that Petition caters for both markets, it was a bit cringeworthy choosing a bottle to dine in with, knowing that it’s marked up by $15 – I have to admit I did have second thoughts about just taking it away (we do have a wedding coming up after all!). But alas, I wanted the full Petition Wine Library experience and I am glad we did! Plus it’s good to see that all wines are marked up by a set $15 no matter what the dine in price is.

Dining In

You can opt for glasses from around $9 a pop and bottles start at roughly $30. I really liked the idea of dining in around all the bottles and because it was a particularly quiet time when we went, it made it all the more exclusive.

We opted to share a bottle of Dalz Otto Prosecco…

Mr. Spittoon and I enjoyed this bottle of Dalz Otto Pucino NV Prosecco at the Petition wine library for $45 with some oysters and charcuterie recently – blog post to come! It’s always a good start at a restaurant to be served up vino in some good glassware. At Petition they use Plumm. This Prosecco is from Little Italy in Victoria – the King Valley. There’s lovely steady streams of fast moving bubbles in the glass and it has a crystal clear with a slight pastel yellow hue. The nose is full of apples, citrus and mandarins with a fresh floral undertone. Smooth on the palate with flavours of custard apples & pink grapefruit. The fine bubbles gently massage the mouth leaving with you with a refreshed, chilled out mood. Perhaps a good wine to Netflix & Chill with ? All opinions are based on my own taste buds #TCWeekdayWine #kingvalley #prosecco #ozwine #petitionwinebar

A photo posted by Travelling Corkscrew Wine Blog (@travellingcorkscrew) on Feb 15, 2016 at 2:12pm PST

With our Prosecco we decided to get a few snacks:

• Natural oysters with lemon $4.50 each
• Selection of charcuterie, pickles, mustard, croutes $29
• Le Pico soft goat’s milk cheese & Maffra Cheddar hard cow’s milk cheese for $20

The food was absolutely delightful and it literally came out within minutes of sitting down. It was a feast for the eyes and taste buds! The only downfall for me was the oysters didn’t come with one of those little oyster forks and they weren’t detached from the shell (which I know can be a big no-no for purists out there!), so I had to fumble around detaching it with my normal oversized fork. The salt foam they lay on was very cool though!

All up our outing was $112 for the 2 of us, which we were happy with. We both had a lovely time and we’d definitely go back if we’re in town and looking for a flashy date spot. Plus I wouldn’t mind having another look through their wines and hey perhaps I can get up that ladder and slide along 🙂

For more information, please check out the Petition Wine Bar & Merchant website and make sure to follow them on Instagram too!