The Cardiff Wine Passport is making a long-awaited return this August, bringing back its popular invitation to explore the Welsh capital one independent bar, restaurant and glass of wine at a time.
Returning for the first time since March 2025, the 2026 Cardiff Wine Passport will give people seven weeks to discover some of the city centre’s best independent hospitality venues, exchanging six passport stamps for six specially selected drinks along the way.
Cardiff-based hospitality consultant Jane Cook created the initiative in 2022 – as a fun and accessible way to encourage people to try independent venues they might not otherwise have considered over the chains.
Since then, the Passport has generated more than £80,000 in direct revenue for exclusively independent Cardiff bars and restaurants. Its wider economic impact is believed to be considerably higher, with passport holders regularly ordering food, additional drinks – and returning to newly discovered venues after completing the scheme.
Its return comes at a particularly challenging time for hospitality businesses, which continue to contend with rising employment, energy and business-rate costs alongside pressure on customers’ disposable income. UKHospitality warned in April that, as a direct result of this year’s cost increases, 64% of surveyed hospitality businesses expected to cut jobs, while around one in seven said they could be forced to close.
Jane Cook, founder of the Cardiff Wine Passport, said: “Cardiff has an incredible independent hospitality scene, but simply having brilliant bars and restaurants does not automatically protect them from rising costs or changes in how people are spending; they need people through the door. The Passport is designed to make choosing independent feel exciting, rather than worthy. It’s six handpicked drinks, an excuse to try somewhere or something new, and the makings of a midweek wine crawl around the city centre.”
HOW THE CARDIFF WINE PASSPORT WORKS
The 2026 Cardiff Wine Passport will run from Thursday 6th August until Sunday 27th September, with passports redeemable at participating venues from Sunday to Thursday only.
Each Passport entitles its holder to six drinks, selected from a choice of thirteen independent city-centre venues: Parallel, Bar 44, Asador 44, Bacareto, Lab 22, Nighthawks, Daffodil, The Dead Canary, Curado and Vermut. Brand new for this year are three new venues – Sicilian café-bar Khione, wine bar Kindred and cocktail bar LowKey.
Passport holders can choose which six venues they visit, and the order in which they visit them, making every route through the city different. At each venue they have a choice to redeem a stamp for one of two specially selected glasses of wine.
Participating venues have also suggested optional food pairings to accompany their drinks, giving Passport holders the chance to turn the experience into their own roaming dinner, or ‘Cardiff tapas tour’. And at The Dead Canary only, Passport holders can even try an exclusive wine-based cocktail – making it even better value for money.
For instance – an afternoon might begin with a glass of chilled red Frappato paired with chickpea fritters at Bacareto, followed by a glass of Amoranza Verdejo and a side of fried chicken & pickles at Parallel, before finishing with a ‘Manic Street Peaches’ wine cocktail – made with rose, grapefruit and peach – at The Dead Canary.
Felix Ray, General Manager at Vermut – a small Vermouth bar just a stone’s throw from the Principality Stadium – said: “We’ve been taking part in the Cardiff Wine Passport since it was founded and over the years it’s helped us reach new customers who were maybe unsure about trying something different or didn’t even realise we were here. Many of them are now our regulars, and that’s what the scheme is all about really. We’re excited to be involved again.”
Jane added, “The great thing about the passport is that you could use it for six separate after-work catchups, a couple of date nights – or an excuse to create your own food and wine trail with a couple of mates. It’s brilliant value, but it’s not intended to be a race around Cardiff collecting free drinks. The entire point is to slow down, enjoy the venues at your own pace, and properly experience the independent businesses that give the Welsh capital its character.”
The 2026 Cardiff Wine Passport will cost £30 and goes on sale on Friday 31 July. Previous editions have sold out. People can register in advance for first access to the on-sale information – and a subscribers-only discount on the first day of sale – at www.cardiffwinepassport.co.uk. Further announcements about the participating venues, drinks and food pairings will be shared through @cdfwinepassport on Instagram.
