6 Best Wine Bars in Barcelona

Vertical is the wine bar for people who take the list seriously. Built in the Eixample around one striking feature, a long glass-fronted wine fridge running the length of the room as its centrepiece, it's the project of sommeliers Bernat Voraviu and Julio Barluenga, the latter a former elBulli sommelier. That pedigree shows in an ambitious by-the-glass list, with a kitchen carrying the stamp of chef Jordi Vilà to match. It's a serious, distinctive newcomer for drinking well, the kind of place where you can hand over the decision to someone who genuinely knows and be led somewhere brilliant. The strongest all-round wine bar in the city right now.

Bar Manifest is the Raval's buzziest natural-wine room, and one of the most exciting places to drink in the city, low light, wood, shelves stacked with bottles and a wall of vinyl spinning behind the bar. The list runs deep into natural and low-intervention wines, and the kitchen takes its plates seriously: oysters, steak tartare with crispy rice, cacio e pepe, and the much-talked-about octopus hot dog with house kimchi. It packs out, especially at weekends, so book or grab a stool at the bar. This is natural wine done with real energy and a kitchen good enough to make it a destination in its own right.

L'Ànima del Vi is a tiny, charming natural-wine bar tucked into El Born, pouring only low-intervention bottles from France and Spain, no additives, no manipulation. The room leans lovably worn: an old piano, marble surfaces, vintage crockery, the kind of place that feels like a friend's slightly bohemian living room. Come for the by-the-glass pours and stay for plates like octopus with potato or duck pâté. It's the intimate, unpretentious end of the natural-wine scene, run by people who clearly love the wine they pour, and one of the loveliest spots in the old city to while away an evening over a few glasses.

Zona d'Ombra is the wine bar for exploring Catalan bottles in depth. Tucked into a narrow Gothic Quarter street, it holds a catalogue of hundreds of references, weighted heavily toward Spanish and especially Catalan wines, with a few from further afield like the Canaries, and you can uncork any bottle from the shelves to drink in. Cold and hot tapas are chosen to match. It's a quiet escape from the old-town crowds and a genuine treasure for anyone who wants to dig into the region's wines with the shelves right in front of them. Serious range, served without a scrap of pretension.

Señora Dolores is a natural-wine bar in Sant Antoni with an unusual and very good hook: the kitchen is built around frying. Expect rotating fried plates, arancini, croquetas-style bites, potato churros, set against raw, seasonal dishes, with a list of artisanal natural wines sourced from small growers within roughly 200km of Barcelona. It's a focused, local-minded little spot rather than a sprawling tapas bar, and the pairing of crisp, hot, fried things with cool, lively natural wine is genuinely clever. One of the more distinctive rooms on this list, and a great argument for how well fried food and natural wine go together.

Casa Mariol earns a place here as much for its wine as its vermut. It's the Barcelona vermutería and shop of a third-generation family winery from Terra Alta in southern Catalonia, and alongside the famous dark vermut you can drink their own monovarietal wines, like Garnatxa Blanca, made with a low-intervention approach. It keeps the nostalgic feel of an old neighbourhood cellar, and the fact that you're drinking bottles made by the family pouring them gives it a provenance most wine bars can't match. Good for a relaxed glass of genuinely estate wine, with the option to carry a bottle home from the shop.