Cathedral Coffee founder Will Murray and his cousin David Murray have almost polar opposite tastes in wine. Will prefers natural wine, or as he puts it, “extremely crazy, extremely wild wine – the weirder the better.” David is more of a traditionalist, favouring, in his words, “old-school producers and regions”.

But the two are opening wine store and event space Le Tuffeau together later this spring, where they’ll offer the best of both worlds, the cousins tell Broadsheet.

The cave a vin will be on the second floor of the Nicholas Building, a Harry Norris-designed 1920s building that is now home to a community of over 200 artists, creatives and independent enterprises.

We think you might like Access. For $12 a month, join our membership program to stay in the know.

SIGN UP

The building is also home to Will’s business Cathedral Coffee, a tiny, tucked-away coffee shop on the ground floor. In addition to coffee, Cathedral is known for its selection of wines and mini Martinis, and David has been working there for the past few years.

“Because [Le Tuffeau’s] on level two, it kind of feels like a secret,” says Will. He and David have renovated the space, which David says was “pretty much in original condition”.

“It’s very cool, very old-world”, Will says of the room, with its floor-to-ceiling tiles. The cousins think it was likely used as a kitchen in the past.

Will and David are bringing out wines from their personal collections and will also be “drip feeding” hard-to-acquire wines that they say are “extremely rare”. They’ll soon start selling some of these bottles on the Le Tuffeau website and will welcome winemakers for one-off tasting events.

While it's a store for now, they plan to open the space as wine bar in future. The room is a perfect square and about five times the size of Will’s coffee shop. The duo plan to section it off with couches to create distinct areas in the bar. They also hope to have seats on either side of the corridor to mirror the set-up at Cathedral Coffee in the arcade downstairs.

Le Tuffeau is expected to open at suite 207, level 2, the Nicholas Building, 37 Swanston Street, Melbourne this spring.