Meet Bar Two: a Tasmanian wine bar with a mission

Launceston, Tasmania’s second city and the gateway to the Tamar Valley, has a new wine bar. 

Tucked away off Brisbane Street is Bar Two: which offers a range of Tasmanian wines, gins and produce. The name means Tasmanian Wines Only. 

Bar Two is owned by Nathan Cairns, whose family run the Tasmanian Organic Wine company in the Liffey Valley. Cairns had long dreamed of a “little hole in the wall bar”.

 “I thought it was just a good time to open a little hole in the wall, friendly, fun, neighbourhood kind of bar that just happens to have a good selection of Tassie wine,” he said when I popped by recently. 

“I come from a bar background and I’ve always wanted to do a bar. Wine should just be about fun, good food, family and friends just hanging and drinking without feeling intimidated or being bored.”

Cairns said he spent a “long, long” time visiting small vineyards across the state to stock the bar. “Every wine has a story,” he said. 

Think local wines like Wellington and Wolfe, Sharmans, Freycinet  and Chartley Estate, local cheeses, bar snacks and cool jazz. 

Bar Two is on the ground floor of 47A Brisbane Street, Launceston, directly under Cinco Passiones, a bar which offers single malt Tasmanian whiskeys and handmade cocktails.