Oak barrels and stainless-steel casks in the lobby, cork floors and in-house sommeliers, The Winery Hotel in Stockholm isn’t subtle about it’s love of vino. The Ruhne family, who own the Terreno wine estate in Tuscany, created the concept hotel to share their love of wine with fellow Swedes. Aside from the obvious draws of staying in a boutique hotel dedicated to plonk, The Winery Hotel’s Brooklyn-meets-Scandinavian style is quite lovely. There’s also a superb fine-dining restaurant, heated rooftop pool and on-site winery. Oenophiles looking to experience a different side of Stockholm need look no further.
The Winery Hotel lies north of the centre of Stockholm in Solna. It would be wrong to say the hotel is well-located, as it sits beside a busy road outside of the city. However, it’s only just under 30 minutes from the heart of the Swedish capital via public transport. It’s also just under an hour to Arlanda airport on the bus, which drops you next to the hotel. For nature, Hagaparken – a park with a big lake, cute café and winding paths – is just over twenty minutes away on foot.
All 184 rooms at the Winery Hotel are designed in industrial style. They come with floor to ceiling crittall glass windows, exposed brick walls and free-hanging lights. All are geared towards wine – even the colour palette and finishings centre around wine (claret and olive green). Rooms are a good-size and have coffee machines, homemade Terreno olive oil toiletries, desks and power showers, but strangely no telephone. Views aren’t spectacular (the hotel overlooks a busy road) but rooms are soundproofed, so there’s no noise from passing traffic. Although you do here the pitter patter of feet on the cork floors above from time to time. Beds are big and comfortable, the lighting is warm and the work stations are ideal for remote workers or business travellers.
You’d been mistaken for thinking The Winery Hotel has been around for decades (it hasn’t) in the factory-like lobby. Picture towering brick walls, exposed black pipes and concrete floors. It feels like an old warehouse in New York without being at all pastiche. The Winery’s two best features, aside from the wine, are its rooftop pool (heated year-round) and food offering. Staff on our visit were more efficient than friendly – not much of a welcome and shy of providing information. Although a lovely in-house sommelier offers insightful wine tours and tastings for additional cost. The Winery Hotel wants to provide wine knowledge to guests in a non-stuffy way.
The breakfast at The Winery Hotel is superb. It’s a classic buffet-style European breakfast with fresh breads, cheeses, cured meats, yoghurts, cereals and fresh fruit with the addition of pancakes with wild berries and whipped cream. What’s refreshing is that the hotel also caters well to those with allergies – with oat milk, soy yoghurts and gluten-free breads readily-available.
The Winery hotel has two restaurants. Terreno Deli, a casual place to eat that serves up Italian dishes, like pasta and pizza and the Winery Kitchen. The latter, a fine-dining restaurant is developing a reputation for its high-quality produce and expert wine pairings. The food is exceptional, from the mushroom sandwich and scallop starters, to the rich duck confit and pumpkin risotto mains. Each dish is impeccably well turned-out and packed with robust flavour combinations. For extra cost, wine pairings are offered by your sommelier. The menu is small but well put together and wines come directly from owners’ Tuscany vineyard. Each year the Ruhne family, who owns the wine hotel and previously had a wine bar in central Stockholm, harvest around 10 tons of grapes providing the hotel with around 10,000 bottles of wine.
