Riot Wine Co has built a home in Brompton where you can taste their full range of wines, pouring from can and keg.

CityMag first met Riot Wine Co back in 2017, not long after their launch in March of that year.

Co-founder Tom O’Donnell invited us to Proof to see and taste his locally produced and kegged wine in person, and he laid out his vision for rolling wine into venues in a new kind of vessel.

This entrepreneurial shift in delivery and storage created a new category of wine in South Australia, and Tom knew he had a lot of consumer education ahead of him.

Now two and a half years in to the business, Riot Wine Co has solidified itself as a quality wine brand and made accessible the thought of consuming crushed grapes out of cans and kegs.

Over the last five months, Riot has embarked on the next part of the process – building a bricks-and-mortar home for the brand: Riot Wine’s The Cannery, launching on Torrens Road in Brompton on Thursday, 11 July.

“The idea was everything we want to do, be it on tap or in can, we’re bringing the wine to you, so we thought, in line with that, we’d bring our space into the city, if you like, so it’s nice and convenient to come down and get a fresh wine experience,” Tom says.

“Considering we’re creating a new category with wine on tap and wine in can, being able to show people exactly what we do and not hide any of it, and have people taste directly from tap and directly from can is a massive part of it.”

The Cannery will operate from 9am ‘til 5pm Monday to Friday as a tasting space, where the public is welcome to come in and learn about Riot’s approach to winemaking and every aspect of the process.

“We buy fruit from all over South Australia, we sell wine all over Australia, but to actually have a bricks-and-mortar site means we can help with the wine education,” Tom says.

“The canning line will be on display for all to see all while tasting our wines from the container bar,” continues co-founder, Joe Cook.

LR: Fizzy bois Tom O’Donnell and Joe Cook

The wine market is known for being set in its ways, but there are changing attitudes in pockets of the industry, and Tom sees that Riot debuted at just the right time to fit into emerging consumer trends.

“The trend of the conscious consumer caring about having less sulphur or fewer preservatives, lower sugar, a more fun, fresher style of wine, the consumer trends are heading that way, as well as Riot having an established enough name to warrant its own bricks and mortar, so all the timings sort of aligned,” Tom says.

Riot Wine Co will debut four new products at The Cannery’s launch event: a 2019 riesling, 2019 rosé and 2019 pinot grigio, as well as a riesling/pilsner collaboration beer, named Social Lube, made in collaboration with Portside brewery Pirate Life.

“We co-fermented our riesling juice and we actually inoculated it using a champagne yeast, and we co-fermented that with the pilsner base that Pirate Life make,” Tom says.

“It’s awesome. It’s super smashable and drinkable. We kind of got these beautiful lemon curd and citrus zest, beautiful fresh riesling flavours, along with a bit of a ginger spice profile, and then it’s definitely got the hoppy, bitter, traditional Pirate Life style. It’s a really well balanced drink between both of our brands.”

The Cannery’s launch party kicks off at 6pm on Thursday, 11 July. Riot Wine Co are also the major wine presence at Beer & BBQ this weekend, and will be pouring their Pirate Life collaboration beer, along with their whole roster of wines, at the festival all weekend.