You’ve made it to KERB’s blogosphere, our new space for sharing our passion for natural wine, art, culture and more. We want to use this space to connect to our audience more, allowing you to see what we care about and what we want to achieve with our natural wine store. Stay tuned to the KERB blog to see content on natural wine, interviews, collaborations, vibes and lifestyle.

Embracing Manchester’s culture

What’s really exciting at the moment, is that much of the discussion about natural wine in the last few years has all been about complicated abstract concepts around sulphur levels and something weird called maceration, but gradually over the last decade, and it feels almost overnight, it has become the drink of choice for younger and more experimental crowd.

Especially in cities it's now linked to a lifestyle, in which natural wine has almost become a badge of honour. It represents an ethical choice, natural winemaking is a way to protect the earth; it's exciting, fizzy, juicy, cloudy, funky, orange, people seem to really embrace the experimental nature of the wine.

It’s exactly the same kind of people that seek out other ethical brands, emerging artists, experimental music, underground clubs, poetry slams, fashion pop ups.

That’s why it’s part of the culture of a city, if you’re wanting something outside the mainstream then natural wine is your drink, and it’s why collaborations are so important to KERB. We want to take natural wine into the cultural happenings of the city - to be part of it.

That might be exhibitions in our store, providing wine at Notahoodlum, Village bookstore in the Northern Quarter, Sampaix Studio’s retail pop ups, art events throughout the city, ethical retail events - we have done it all in the first six months, and we’re hungry to do more.

We want to run an online natural wine store and bar, but for us it's all about working with the creative minds in the city - and not really knowing where things will end up.

It’s also why we worked with Youth Studio in Manchester on the design of the store and Studio eNaR on our branding - they are part of the creative mix that makes Manchester, Manchester.

We are working with artist Tomas Gittins on a new range of merch for the summer, for us it's about always wanting to do something different and fresh and not being prescriptive about the end product - it really does mirror the excitement around the natural wine scene.

Our take on what natural wine stores can be

KERB was always meant to be a casual hangout spot, somewhere we can build a community around wine - not necessarily all about the wine. We wanted that kind of casual pop in for a drink afterwork on the way to somewhere else kind of vibe. I think the reason people love natural wine is, it's everything the traditional wine scene isn’t- fun, casual, experimental and welcoming to newbies.

We wanted to create an intimate space that encourages interaction. It's such a nice vibe in the store, when you see people chatting to other people they have never met and bonding over natural wine, natural wine acts a great social lubricant.

Our interactive space then combines so well with the events we have run and plan to run, bringing in young and exciting artists to showcase their work in store. These events help pull in a new crowd to natural wine, helping it reach new audiences.

We have one of the best selections of natural wine in the country, we think, with some of the best knowledge in the city. We want to be a friendly safe space - we are happy to share our knowledge, but it's cool if you just want to have fun too.

What the future holds for KERB

KERB is under a year old, so we are still growing and hungry for the future. Our plans going forward include exhibitions in our own store, showcasing some of Manchester’s most exciting new artists, and we will also be seen pouring wine at various events around the city.

We aim to continue to stock the best natural wine possible, which is available in store or online for delivery. Stick to our blog page for upcoming blog posts about all things Kerb and natural wine, and head to our events pages to see what we have coming up and what events we have run in the past.