Welcome to The
Bargain Bottle Shop
The slightly chaotic home of brilliant booze bargains. We believe every bottle deserves a second chance.
Some bottles end up in fancy shops with mood lighting, serious labels and someone explaining they can taste “hints of wet stone”.
Ours usually arrive on a pallet with a wonky box and someone saying:
“We’ve got 600 of these. Can you help?”
Yes. Yes we can.
We hunt down:
Then we pass the bargains on.
Why are they cheap?
Good question. Sometimes:
The important bit? Nothing wrong with the booze. Something went wonderfully wrong with the paperwork.
It Started Because Wine Was Taking Itself Far Too Seriously 🍇
Back in 2008, people seemed convinced you needed to know what “restrained minerality”meant before you were allowed to buy a bottle. We disagreed.
So we started The Smiling Grape Company, with one simple mission: to make wine fun again. Not in a beret-and-baguette kind of way. In a “grab a pizza, invite your mates round and open something nice” kind of way.
Before long we were matching wines with burgers, kebabs, Domino's, Chinese takeaways, films, celebrities and even X Factor judges. Wine experts looked slightly confused. Customers loved it. Apparently, it worked.
Over the years we've…
Somehow, making wine less intimidating turned into a career. We also created Tipple Tours, taking thirsty travellers on wine, beer and food adventures around the world. After years of finding hidden gems abroad, we thought: why not rescue some hidden gems at home too?
So The Bargain Bottle Shop was born.
Meet Matt 👋
Matt Ellis has spent over 25 years buying, selling, tasting and talking about wine, beer and spirits. He's visited wineries and breweries all over the world, hosted countless tastings, and probably spends far too much time wandering around warehouses looking for bargains.
He's fluent in wine. Completely fluent in beer. He also firmly believes that hops are just grapes with a gym membership — and nobody has yet managed to prove him wrong.
🏆 Fun fact: Matt once achieved a Guinness World Record for pub crawling. Dedication to the craft, we call it.
So… why The Bargain Bottle Shop?
Every year thousands of brilliant bottles get forgotten. An importer ordered too many. A label changed. The vintage rolled over. A supermarket changed its mind. None of that makes the drink any worse. It just makes it cheaper.
Which is where we come in.
We hunt down the bottles everyone else has stopped looking at, rescue them from dusty warehouses and give them a second chance in life.
Think of us as an adoption centre. For alcohol. 🍾
What you won't find here
You will find ridiculously good drinks, honest prices and the occasional tasting note that makes absolutely no sense after the second glass.
Our Philosophy
No velvet jackets.
No confusing wine waffle.
No pretending every bottle needs a 20-minute speech.
Just:
🍷 Life's too short for boring wine.
🍷 Beer deserves respect too.
🍷 Paying full price should be optional.
🍷 And if we can make you laugh before you've even opened the bottle… our work here is done. 🍷
Welcome to the bargain aisle.
Have a rummage. You might discover your new favourite wine. You might find something completely ridiculous. You might ask:
“Who bought 2,000 bottles of banana liqueur?”
(The answer is probably us.)
Either way… it’ll be cheaper than it should be. 🍾
Award-Winning Since 2008 🏆
We're not just cheap — we're properly good. Over the years The Smiling Grape Company has been named International Wine Challenge Regional Merchant of the Year, and been a finalist at the Grocer Gold, Drinks Retailing and Harpers Awards. Not bad for a shop that pairs wine with kebabs.
See The Awards Cabinet →
