I’ve ended-up with a couple of days to kill in London . . . oh the horror! I did not realize that Monday was a Bank Holiday here when I planned my trip.
Any suggestions for interesting wine shops to peruse while being a tourist for a couple of days? Shops that have good selections of Burgs or Bordeaux that may not typically be available in the States would be of particular interest.
Hi there,
A few worth trying:
Lea and Sandeman, 170 Fulham Road - Sadly this is the best wine shop in London. I say ‘sadly’ because the gits fired me when I was really insane, tried to kill myself and got locked up in the local loony bin. They have all kinds of good stuff including some brilliant Burgundy, an ever changing array of Bordeaux, great Italian kit and other gems.
Fortnum and Mason, Picadilly - They have a good range including some really flash stuff. Prices range from the very keen to those that will make your credit card smoke. The attached wine bar has brilliant food and will pop anything in the shop for the retail price plus ten quid corkage. If you go there do try the scotch eggs - yum.
Berry Brothers and Rudd, St James - More for the shop itself which is a real piece of history, but they do sell some rather desirable wines there.
Hope this helps.
Cheers,
David.
That’s terrific, you need to head over to one of the Sampler stores, preferably the new one in South Kensington. Great people and great selection of anything from sherry to aged burgs and bord. They also have 8 or 9 sampling machines which makes it a great experience, they serve anything from basic German riesling to first growths.
Vinoteca sells their wine but mostly a good restaurant with fair priced and good wine.
For something you can’t get stateside I would recommend some restaurants that have the wines of Les Caves de Pyrène; Terroirs and especially (!) their new wine bar Brawn. A lot of delicious food and natural wines, think no added sulphur and Gravner styled wine-making.
Long post but check out their websites to get the idea, if nothing else head over to the Sampler, really is a watering hole for wine nerds!
Let us know what you did!
Fantastic. Thank you David and Christofer.
Berry Brothers were displaying an extraordinary range of Burgundies last time I was there, a great improvement, and the prices may not hurt so much if you claim a VAT refund at the airport.
Fortnum & Mason and Harrod’s can have some good deals, if you look carefully. I suspect that these stores
make so many profit from selling overpriced tea, jam, and trinkets to Asian tourists, such that their non-
Bordeaux wine pricing are an afterthought.
By the way, eat at Le Boudin Blanc, a great French bistro which is not only nearby but also offers
reasonable BYO corkage.
+1 on the Sampler. The tasting machines are great fun, and, if you feel like splurging, they have some nice “icons”.
http://www.thesampler.co.uk/store/
You should have looked a few of us up, Greg. 
I would suggest a nice wine bar/shop crawl from harvey nicholls (wine shop on top floor always has a nice selection of burgundy), via harrods (some great burgs with occasional bargains) to the newly opened Sipp a few hundred yards further down brompton road (has oenomatic machines to taste various wines like the sampler) and then on to the Sampler at South Ken. Come to think of it, sounds like a hell of a way to spend an afternoon and I suspect all will be open on bank holiday monday.
You’re certainly getting around these days Greg. Great advice here. I remember my first trip to Berry Bros 10+ years ago, looking around the antique surroundings and wondering…where’s all the wine?! Enjoy.
RT
As it turns out, Sampler is within walking distance of my hotel. So, I made it by there early this evening after spending a very interesting afternoon at the Kew Steam Engine Museum and the Ham House on the South side of the Thames.
The ‘sampling’ concept was great and their wine selections, overall, seemed very well thought out. My ‘sampler’ for the evening was:
Whites:
2009 Domaine Maroslavac-Leger Bourgogne La Combe
2009 Zohar Torrontes
Reds:
2009 Jean Foillard Morgan ‘Cote du Py’
2005 J. Cacheux Vosne-Romanee Aux Reas
2006 Domaine lejeone Pommard 1er Cru Les Rugiens
1998 Armond Rousseau Gevrey Chambertin
2007 Au Bon Climat Knox-Alexander Pinot Noir
2004 Rafael Cambra Uno
1996 Cos d’Estournal
1986 Ausone
1996 Mouton Rothschild
Enjoyable place. I’m going to try to hit a couple of the other recommendations tomorrow.
Greg,
I live just near harrods so if you are around that way and fancy a glass of something nice just pm me.
Dan
Unfortunately, both were closed yesterday, on the Bank Holiday. I did, however, make it up to The Cork & Bottle in Leicester Square, for dinner before going to the theatre and enjoyed a couple of nice glasses of wine: 2008 Domaine de Vauroux Chablis and 2009 Domaine Le Cotoyon Julienas Beaujolais.
I’m getting around a bit too much. More time at home would be nice.
PM sent. Unfortunately, I’ve already left Central London. Perhaps we might be able to arrange something on my next trip over.
I’m guessing it isn’t the best in town, but I’ve also bought some good Burgs at Harrods. I might not go out of my way to go wine shopping there, but the food court is worth a visit and you might as well check out the wine as well.
And I’d defer to others, especially David, about this, but it’s my impression that buying retail in London is different than buying retail in the States, as people who buy seriously in London by in bond, so a lot of the higher end wines never see retail stores. That’s true to some extent here with prearrivals and futures, but it’s a bigger deal in London, for the higher end wines at least. But of course I could be wrong about this.
Cheers,
-Robert
Greg,
Sorry I missed you this time. Give me some advance notice next time you’re coming over and I’m sure we can arrange something fun.
Dan
Sounds like a plan. ![[cheers.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/0/0ff9bfcdb0964982cd3240b6159868fbdf215b1a.gif "cheers"){kind=small}
My wife and I are in London now and stopped by BB&R day before yesterday. While impressed with the history of the old building, I was not impressed with the service at all. We walked in and no one greeted us for quite some time. We asked about seeing more of the store but was told to book something online. One of the workers actually showed us the webpage.
Now I ask you, why didn’t this fellow just book something with us right then and there?
We left with a bitter taste and it has been the only negative in our trip in London.
If BB&R wants to continue for another few hundred years, they better get on board with their personal service.
Prices are insane but selection is quite fun to browse at Hedonism. And you can taste some great stuff by the glass.
They’re really not a physical retail operation there. It’s basically an office, storage and private functions place, not a shop.
Fortnum and Mason, Picadilly Fun classy store with surprisingly decent pricing. Bought most our wine for an apartment there last fall. They had some really nice 2012 F&M private label Chablis made by Louis Michel last year. Cool food section too.
We almost got the same treatment except I smoozed the guy a bit and he warmed up. Told him producers I liked and he got me a couple btls from below. But yes, best part was wife taking a pic of myself out front of venerable store front. Plus the place is almost never open.
RT[/quote]
My wife and I are in London now and stopped by BB&R day before yesterday. While impressed with the history of the old building, I was not impressed with the service at all. We walked in and no one greeted us for quite some time. We asked about seeing more of the store but was told to book something online. One of the workers actually showed us the webpage.
Now I ask you, why didn’t this fellow just book something with us right then and there?
We left with a bitter taste and it has been the only negative in our trip in London.
If BB&R wants to continue for another few hundred years, they better get on board with their personal service.[/quote]