This isn’t really a Frankfurt phenomenon, but with the German love of wine it has caught on in Frankfurt. In the Summer, the Friday wine markets in Schillerstrasse and Friedbergerplatz are full of people testing wines. But it is not hard to turn a corner and find a new winebar has popped up. Even the newly completed Alt-Stadt has a brand new wine bar at its heart.  But my favourite at the moment has got to be the wineBANK which opened a couple of years ago near the Börse.

wineBANK is a unique concept which has a main function as a members only club for wine collectors but with a bar open Tuesday to Saturday for casual visitors. Downstairs in the cellar are many caged wine collections owned by members you can rent a cage for minimum €99 a month (space for 30 bottles) and in return you have unlimited access to the cellar for you and up to 4 guests. Have a look online at the prices for larger cages and you will see that there are some decent investments happening. You can either stock the cellar yourself or buy wines through the wineBANK.

If you do go for membership, there are 9 locations around the German speaking world and a few planned for outside in the near future. This means that if you are in one of their cities, you can drop into any of the locations 24/7 and access the club’s curated and unlocked cage which runs on an honour system. Just pay for what you take.

If membership is a little pricey – €99/mth can be a little much just to store wine at the right temperature – then the best part is definitely the bar. Rather than ordering by the glass or bottle from a menu, there is a self-service wine dispenser. Just add credit to a card at the counter and then help yourself to one of 40 different types of wine on demand. The bar staff speak excellent English and will talk you through the options. The prices are really good especially considering the quality of the wine and the dispenser allows for 20ml, 50ml or 100ml servings so you can pace yourself and try lots of wines.

And no, this isn’t a sponsored post, I’m just a fan…!

But they don’t do proper meals but there are very nice selections of meats, cheese and bread to go with the wines….