London Wine Scene (No.1)

Be sure to try the sherry straight from the barrel at Gordon's I'm partial to the Oloroso this time of year...

Hi All,

Since the days of Samuel Pepys enjoying bottles of Haut-Brion at the Royal Oak Tavern, and before, wine has been a part of London’s venerable drinking culture. However modern London became a beer city through and through and for a long time wine was relegated to the world of luxury and genteel social circles.

London is an increasingly interesting place for both food and wine; the latter being a more recent development which was for a time hampered by the city’s love affair with craft beer. Now far from hurting the wine scene, craft beer has proven to be a valuable role model for the capital’s oenocentric establishments. Just as the last decade saw a

sustained trend toward craft beer bars there is a revamped interest in wine making inroads into London’s well-established drinking culture.

Bars dedicated to grape over grain are increasingly common and popular among the city’s drinkers and as a result the variety and quality on offer are on the rise. For too long the legendary Gordon’s Wine Bar on Villiers Street stood alone, and while no new venture is yet to take this iconic cellar’s place at the top, there are some very exciting, niche wine bars taking the stage.

Sager+Wilde's industrial-rustic bar.

The city’s ‘E’ postcodes have long been a heartland for the latest and greatest in London’s various trends. It is here that the wine scene in our fair city is moving forward the quickest. Sager+Wilde is an excellent place to enjoy a well-curated wine list which combines value with exceptional quality. The wine list is among the city’s best and unlike many places claiming as much, it’s not a leather bound book the length of a Tolstoy novel.

Spread across 12 concise pages, this list has plenty to cater to the classicist's needs as well as plenty for the eclecticist’s imaginations. The bubbly list is wall-to-wall with top growers including Jacques Selosse and Cedric Bouchard and includes a funky vintage 1992 number from Copeland Vineyards (Russian River Valley). The rest of the list is packed with gems, from little known Loire reds and Jura whites to blue-blooded burgundies such as Ramonet, Leroy and Hudelot-Noellat. The Rhone selection is immense and includes Cornas from Clape, top Cote-Rotie from Jamet as well as Pignan for very good prices. The ambience is perfect as well, with it's contradictory industrial-rustic style, making for a perfect venue to enjoy a rural product like wine in the heart of East London.

Moving back into the centre of the city, Terroirs on William IV Street, is a traditional wine bar that opened in 2008 and got everything perfect. The food is the right size and on-message with the majority of the wine list, focusing on Old World specialties from Italy, Spain and France. Though the list is a bit more expensive than Sager+Wilde, the prices are still reasonable and considering the central West End location, they’re pretty good indeed.

Terroirs is definitely worth visiting if you want to try out some more adventurous bottles as well, with one of the largest selections of ‘orange’ wines (essentially white wines made with skin contact like reds) in London. In addition, the wine list is actually a pleasure to read, with good introductions to each section, it’s refreshingly un-stuffy and engaging.

I will keep exploring the wine bars of the capital and be sure to report back regularly on my findings. Until then,

Much Love,

G

Andrew Edmunds

Hi All, 

I recently had a spectacular experience at Soho's Andrew Edmunds Restaurant. 

The Short and Skinny of it...

Andrew Edmunds, 46 Lexington Street, Soho

Wine List – Extensive, all tastes catered; excellent prices; aged wines available. 

BYO - No, but why bother?

Menu – Classics with a Spanish inclination.

Don’t miss – Confit Pigs Cheeks to start, Chateaubriand to share. Arrive early and peruse the Andrew Edmund print shop next door for a wealth of original Hogarth engravings.

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The combination of the right wine with the right food gives both the chance to shine and finding the right place to experience this interaction is essential. Fortunately, London’s wine scene has been on the up for years now and the capitol’s restaurants have proven to be dynamic and exciting places to experience some truly interesting wines and to do so in context. 

One of the true classics of the city’s wine scene is tucked away on Soho’s Lexington Street in one of the area’s best preserved original town houses. Andrew Edmunds Restaurant is a “bastion of old Soho,” and since 1986 has been the haunt of a devoted and loyal following. A combination of a fantastic menu, warm ambience and one of London’s best wine lists, have earned this establishment it’s place of pride in Soho’s proud restaurant tradition. 

The wine list is among the best in Soho and not just because it is extensive. Though slanted towards an Old World palate as befits its 18^th century digs, there is more than a tip of the hat to the Southern Hemisphere and the United States as well as an abundance of back vintages and the odd bottles of more esoteric stuff. There is no shortage of American cult wines, as Sine Qua Non, Araujo and Abreu adorn the list alongside many others.

Perusing the list, a wine-geek such as myself cannot help but tremble with excitement from the prices for proper wine. No write-off house reds here; no one is phoning it in by building a wine list based on whatever is easily available. The bottom end of the spectrum starts around £20 per bottle and includes a very tempting selection of Loire reds, and big name Chateauneuf and Crozes Hermitage for not much above retail prices at £30-a-bottle. 

We started off with a bottle of Gallimard Brut Reserve non-vintage Champagne, which was a fantastic value at a mere £29.50 (what happened to restaurant mark-up?!), and was a perfect pairing for the braised pigs cheeks and mussels we started with. 

For the main event we sprang for a Nuits-Saint-Georges 1er Cru Clos des Argillieres 2010 from Vincent Dureuil-Janthial that was absolutely delicious and again entirely reasonable at £48. The wine was bright and forward with pure raspberry and strawberry fruit and a hint of sweet-citrus like a very ripe satsuma.

It was a tough choice though, with both the 1996 Ormes de Pez and the 1997 Lail Vineyards Cabernet jumping off the page. In the end, the lightly spiced pork chop and seared hake, demanded something more delicate and we acquiesced. A glass of Antinori Vin Santo was a perfect way to top it all off.

I don’t often drink such good wine at restaurants unless I’m able to bring it myself, but even if they did allow customers to bring their own, standard corkage on top of retail prices would probably be more expensive than ordering off the list anyways. For a bottle of top quality, aged wine at a stylish Soho location as this, Andrew Edmunds is a proper exercise in well-priced luxury. It is a fantastic place to enjoy quality wine and excellent food together and London deserves more jewels like this.

Much Love,

G