Exploring Wines by the glass

I’ve never understood why people don’t even blink at paying £12 for a cocktail, and yet you try to charge anything over £5 for a glass of wine and you can see the palpitations starting. Granted it doesn’t help that wine isn’t very important to a lot of bars and pubs, with customers being charged a small fortune for liquid that has more in common with loo cleaner than wine.

 Thankfully there are an increasing number of bars and restaurants in London where the wine is the focus, where the wine list is full of quirky gems and the staff are keen to help you explore it. For those of you lucky enough to live in or near London, here follows a list of my favourite wine bars where I think they really get it right.  This is where you should go if you want to enjoy wine and learn something new while you’re at it.

 Sager & Wilde (Hackney)

Run by epic husband & wife team, Michael & Charlotte Sager-Wilde, this started as a pop-up but they quickly found themselves a permanent site on Hackney Road. Their focus is on offering wines that you would otherwise never dream of drinking by using a flat rate £20 mark up across the board. So this means the higher up the list you go, the better deal you’re getting. Alongside wines from vintages that I didn’t think were still available, they also serve such wonders as Txakoli and Catarratto, lots of them by the glass, and their grilled cheese sandwich soaks it all up very nicely indeed.

http://www.sagerandwilde.com/

 

Vinoteca (many London locations, and growing!)

This little empire started out just opposite Smithfields meat market, and is about to open its 5^th site by Kings Cross. This is more of a restaurant than a wine bar, but the wine offering is huge and everything is available to drink in or take away. In fact every bottle has two prices indicating how much it is to take away and to drink in, which shows just how reasonable their mark ups are. The list of wines by the glass is constantly changing, and they host monthly wine dinners which are well worth going to if you fancy letting out your inner wine-geek for an evening.

http://www.vinoteca.co.uk/

 

The 10 Cases (Covent Garden)

A Bistro on one side and a wine shop/bar on the other, this place is a wine haven in an otherwise rather drab part of Covent Garden. The owners Will & Ian only ever buy 10 cases of each wine, so when it’s gone they’ll replace it with something new. This means the list is always fresh and exciting and the staff are on hand to offer you their recommendations if you’re feeling overwhelmed by the whole thing. The “Cave à Vin” next door is where they offer those wines that have been particularly well received in the restaurant (alongside finer gems) which you can either take away or drink on site for a £12 corkage fee, accompanied by an assortment of charcuterie and cheeses.

http://10cases.co.uk/

 

Planet of the Grapes (The City)

I first discovered these guys at their fantastic shop in Holborn, then quickly visited their bar/shop in Leadenhall Market which is tiny but tremendous (size isn’t everything). You can drink any bottle from their shelves for just a £10 corkage fee which makes it great value. And if you’re interested in Wine Dinners, they organise some rather epic ones with the World’s most iconic winemakers in their Holborn shop or in their new Bow Lane restaurant.

http://planetofthegrapes.co.uk/site/leadenhall-wine-bar

 

Vagabond Wines (Charlotte Street & Fulham Broadway)

Vagabond is quite simply a wine mecca. They have 100 wines on tap, which you can either sample (25ml) or enjoy a full glass of (125ml) alongside delicious charcuterie and cheese platters. And when you find a wine that really excites you, you can buy a bottle (or several!) to take home with you. They also host brilliant informal wine tastings so you can learn more about your new favourite tipple. Surely this is the future of wine retail? We live in hope.

http://vagabondwines.co.uk/

 

 Happy Swigging!