London Wine Week kicks off on Monday June 5th, venerating vino at events across the capital. Here’s what to expect…
Wine: it’s grape stuff, don’t you think? (Check out our guide to wine bars in London.) So it’s only right that wine-lovers would get an entire week to call their own. The London Wine Week organisers will be painting the town red (and white, and rosé…) with over 125 bars across London providing awesome offers, and 32 events taking place from freebies to feasts. Here are six of the best bits that get our wine sense tingling in anticipation.
1) Try three wines for a fiver
Flash your festival pass at one of 75 bars across the city, and £5 will get you a flight of three different wines to try. New Street Wine Shop will treat you to a ‘summer dream’ of three ‘easy-drinking’ wines, for example, while Bedales of Borough will sort you out with a trio somehow inspired by artists. Just to repeat the concept: five pounds, three wines.
2) …or have a glass and a mouthwatering morsel
Other venues will instead furnish you with a glass of something special paired with the perfect snack from their kitchen. So you could pop into Hawksmoor for bone marrow oysters with a ‘vigorous’ and ‘lively’ sherry, then mosey over the road to Butlers Wharf Chop House for a glass of sparkling Chapel Down and a pork and black pudding scotch egg.
3) Head to this lush courtyard for… OK, I’ll be honest with you, it’s wine
You’ll want to pick up your magic £10 Festival Pass from here anyway, but hey – stick around for a while, stranger! Start as you mean to go on with a glass of fizz from Freixenet, then sample the different wine pop-ups that have gathered at the LWW Hub in Devonshire Square. A lovely spot to hang about in if it’s nice and warm after work.
4) Have a bucolic brunch
Good food belongs with wine like Netflix belongs with chill. So join the fine chefs at Sager & Wilde for a six-wine-six-dish pairing menu from Loire Valley Wines, or dine with Regal Rogue and the Modern Pantry chefs for an aromatic, Australian feast. (If you’re more of an evening person, then get along to KinoVino’s film, food and wine night or treat yourself to the extravagant Big Bottles at Beast with Pol Roger.)
5) Wine yourself up at Oval Space’s big wine party
LWW’s biggest event will see Bethnal Green’s Oval Space transformed into a picturesque vineyard for The Wine Edit. And where there’s vines, there’s wines (an old winemaker saying probably?) so you can try bottles from across Europe, or mix it up with some apertivos on their sun-kissed terrace while DJs spin you soul and disco. There are four different five-hour slots to choose from across the weekend to suit your schedule (and because five hours of wine drinking is probably the maximum advisable.)
6) Wander from wine to wine on a tour
Combine strolling with sipping as the folks at Searcy’s lead you on a tour of their wine bars. Yes, it might start in the slightly mass-market environs of Westfield Stratford (although who knew it had a fancy champagne bar?) but you’ll wend your way through St. Pancras, St. Paul’s and The Barbican before ascending, pleasantly buzzed, to the heights of the Gherkin for your final stop, possibly gazing out at the London skyline with a pal friend and validating each other with thoughts about how you ‘run this town’ and ‘this is your time.’
Sold? Explore the bars and events and get your £10 wristband at the London Wine Week website.
Sold? Explore the bars and events and get your £10 wristband at We know wine’s jolly nice stuff, but please remember to always drink responsibly. Thankin’ you!