Little London Wine Tour February 2019

Wandering from Shoreditch via Fitzrovia to Battersea, we were tasting Italian 🇮🇹 & English 🇬🇧 wines, plus a Spanish 🇪🇸 sherry.

The UnscrewMe journey through London wine bars and restaurants continues to help you discover locations, wines and tastings you might have missed otherwise.

In February we explored not only new, but also more established wine bars. We even included an urban winery in our list. While we do like to explore new, recently opened places, sometimes it is worth looking beyond the shiny and trendy openings.

Don’t miss any of our news by following us on social media via Twitter @unscrewmeapp, Facebook UnscrewMe or Instagram @unscrewmeapp.

Drakes Tabanco, Fitzrovia, W1

• Name: Drakes Tabanco
• Location: W1, Fitzrovia. Just off Charlotte Street, where every house is a restaurant, but not every restaurant might have interesting wines.
• Background: Certainly not new, I was tempted to go for years. Finally, a few weeks ago, I made it there. They do tasty Spanish food in a somewhat rustic atmosphere with candles and dark wood. The focus of the wine list is firmly on Spanish fare.
• Wine Picks:
  2016 Cucú VdT by Bodega Barco del Corneta from Castilla y Leon in Spain 🇪🇸 . Feeling funky after a little conversation with the waiter, I went off the beaten track of Albariño and instead ordered a Verdejo white wine Vino de la Tierra (VdT). This wine had more of a body or structure than many other white wines with nice citrus fruit as well as some apple notes.
  2015 Val de Castrillo from Ribera del Duero in Spain 🇪🇸 . Moving on to red, the waiter recommended another great wine. This one was made from Tinto del Pais grapes, the local name of the Tempranillo grape variety. It did smell a bit like a fortified wine, maybe due to the alcohol, yet overall it showed beautiful cherry flavours with a hint of oak, concentrated but not too high in tannins for my liking.
  Sherry Oloroso & Moscatel by Bodegas César Florido from Jerez in Spain 🇪🇸. Because Drakes Tabanco actually specialises in Sherry, the “Tabanco” in their name refers to a traditional sherry tavern, I couldn’t leave without trying one. This one was interesting and had a good balance with tasty dried fruit notes yet not being overly sweet.
• Tastings: As far as I’m aware, they do not do tasting events. But they do have Sherry tasting flights on the menu. And with the interesting wine list, you could just do your own little tasting, assisted by the knowledgeable waiters.

BOTTLES, Shoreditch, E1

• Name: BOTTLES
• Location: E1, Shoreditch. Right within the beautiful Spitalfields Market.
• Background: I was surprised that I had not heard of this place before. It is fairly new and has some exciting wines on the list. The layout is dominated by larger sharing tables. They have pretty Zalto glasses!
• Wine Picks:
  Sottoriva Prosecco NV by Azienda Agricola Malibrán from Veneto in Italy 🇮🇹. A sparkling natural wine that was recommended to me as the most interesting sparkling wine on the list. As you might expect from a natural wine, it was cloudy and had a bit of a musty, cidery smell. Getting over the somewhat murky nose, I enjoyed the fresh apple, lemon and lime notes combined with a bit of earthiness in the taste. I did feel that it was perhaps a little bit unbalanced, as it got warmer subtle stone fruits notes, I thought white peach, came out more, which added another layer to the wine.
• Tastings: They run regular tasting events, some are more focused on wine, others more on food.

Vagabond, Battersea Power Station, SW11

• Name: Vagabond Battersea Power Station
• Location: SW11, Battersea Power Station. Along many other restaurants, cafes and shops, you also find a wine bar at the new development next to Battersea Power Station. The style of the wine bar reminded me quite of the Victoria branch.
• Background: This new location had been on my radar for a while already. When I started to plan a private wine tasting focusing on Urban Wineries in London, I decided to check out this branch because besides the wine bar, it’s also the location of their new in-house winery.
• Wine Picks:
  2017 PÉT-NOT Sparkling by Vagabond Urban Winery from England, United Kingdom 🇬🇧. Another trendy sparkling wine made with the “pétillant naturel” method using English Reichensteiner grapes. It was quite refreshing but nothing I would want to drink every day.
  2017 Bacchus by Vagabond Urban Winery from England, United Kingdom 🇬🇧. The English Bacchus surprised me, as it did smell and taste quite a lot like some Sauvignon Blanc wines with perfumes and tropical fruit notes.
• Tastings: Vagabond do regular events in their various branches — and we keep ourselves busy to list them on UnscrewMe.

With the end of the month approaching rather quickly, we will present our favourite wines from February next and then soon continue our series focusing on London’s urban wineries.

(Of course, we scribbled some notes over the wines mentioned above, but we also had delicious coffees at Attendant in Shoreditch, Kaffeine in Fitzrovia and Department of Coffee and Social Affairs in Paddington.)