Places of Note 2 - The Prince Wine Store Essendon

80 Primrose Street, on the corner of Albion St, Essendon, Vic, 3181

Mon to Thurs - 10am - 9pm
Fri & Sat - 10am - 10pm
Sun - Noon - 10pm

http://www.princewinestore.com.au/

You could easily drive past the Prince Wine Store in Essendon and not give it a moment’s notice.  VB sign on the roof and all, this drive-through bottle shop looks like any of a thousand cheap piss merchants that dot the suburbs of every town and city in this nation.  You know the sort, a drive way out the front, posters everywhere advertising slabs of Woodstock and Pure Blonde, where about the nicest thing you’ll find to take home is a six-pack of Blue Tongue, if you’re lucky.  So yeah, I wouldn’t blame you if you kept driving, but never the less, in the Prince’s case this would be a mistake on the scale of Napoleon’s invasion of Russia.

In fact, the only thing that gives you a hint of what’s waiting inside is the Rouge’s poster on the front entrance and, like a shark zeroing in on a whiff of blood, I’m in the door and dodging past the stacks of wine.  Knowing the other Prince wine store in South Melbourne I’m sure all these stacks of grape juice are of excellent quality but of no interest to one of a more refined palate like myself.  All the action is in the fridges at the back and what awaits there is quite a sight.

The website mentions something about 600 bottles of beer but I doubt there is quite that many, although there were workmen whom seemed to be setting up shelves in the adjacent room so who knows.  Either way, there is a lot of good beer here, leaning more toward the international than the local.  All the Belgian staples like Duvel and the trappists (sick band name) with smaller selection of German, North American and British (Darkstar!) but all quality.   There is also a whole fridge’s worth of some of New Zealand’s best like Tuatara, Yeastie Boys and 8 wired.

If you want beers from the northern extremities then the Prince has the range to beat with a literal Viking horde weighing down the shelves.  We’re talking Nogne O, Haandbryggeriet, Amager Bryghus, Beer Here and not just one or two styles from either but a decent representation of each range, indeed there two shelves dedicated solely to Mikkeller in all its varied and pricey forms.  That’s probably why there are so few British beers present, they’ve all shitted themselves and fled back to their quaint yet highly flammable thatch villages...

 

So yeah, if you are ever travelling anywhere in the general vicinity of Essendon, the Prince is well worth a diversion to go and visit.