8 wines on the list · 5 shelves · tastings every Thursday
An independent merchant on Bower Lane. We buy from growers rather than brands, and if the eighteen-pound bottle is better than the thirty-pound one, we will say so.
Open a bottle tonight
Beaujolais, France
Domaine Boucaud
Chill it. We mean it — twenty minutes in the fridge.
Jerez, Spain
Bodegas del Muro
Walnuts and old wood. Bone dry — nothing like cream sherry.
Loire, France
Clos de la Meslerie
Quince and wet wool. Dry, despite what everyone expects of Vouvray.
How the shop is laid out
Bower Lane
Everything is on the shelf where you can pick it up and read the back label. The cellar below the shop holds the older bottles and stays at twelve degrees all year, which is the only reason we took the building.
The back wall. The ladder is not decorative — the good burgundy is at the top because nobody buys what they cannot reach.
Thursdays, seven o'clock
We push the table into the middle of the shop and open whatever we have been arguing about that month. Fifteen pounds, redeemable against anything you buy on the night.
What's coming up