As I mentioned on Friday, I spent some of my birthday weekend at Vinopolis. It was totally was my favourite part, and something I would recommend to anyone. Well, unless they were teetotal. It’s a wine tasting experience just by London Bridge – you pay for a certain amount of tokens and each one gets you a small glass of wine. Probably about a third of a small glass, I’d say. It’s super high tech with machines that deliver your wine to you, and we all managed to get pleasantly drunk before the day was out. It was genuinely interesting, though – I actually know stuff about wine now! I can do the thoughtful wine swirl & slosh now without just taking the mickey out of wine experts. I totally know why they do that! There’s a REASON.
Also, I find that when I drink wine, I just go for the ones I know I like. Rose – Zinfandel or Grenache, please! White - Sauvignon Blanc or Pinot, thank you! Red – hit me up with the Cabernet Sauvignon! Oooh, or Merlot. Or a nice Chianti. *Hannibal Lecter impression* But at Vinopolis, just going for what you like isn’t really the point. We had 12 tokens, which is the middle option – you can go for 7 tokens or the top option which is 16. 12 tokens were enough to get us 12 lots of wine (most of the portions are 1 token, some are 2 and a few extra special ones are more). I found myself reading the label more, going for the ones that had interesting flavours in them. I tried a red that tasted of cherries, a white that reminded me of lychees and a dessert wine that tasted of Christmas. Seriously.
I thought it was pretty good value for money. If you buy two tickets you get a discounted rate, so we got 12 tokens for £24. 12 was a good number – I could have happily gone for a couple more glasses or chosen a couple of the more expensive ones, but I felt like we got a good sample and even had enough left over to get a couple of my favourites again. Although saying that I could have gone for more, at the pub later on I had a large glass of red and nursed it for about two hours – I was all wined out!
We were in there for about 2 and a half hours, but we had a nibble when we were there too. If there's wine, there's just got to be cheese. It's a RULE.
Sometimes when you do those experience things you just feel like ‘Oh, that was fun but I’ve done it now’ but with Vinopolis, I’m desperate to go again. We’re hopefully planning to do wine tasting when we’re in France for my friend’s hen in September, so it’ll be fun to compare.
I've robbed my friend Russell's awesome photos for this post - he's far better at this snapping business than I am!
Also, it’s in a great location. As it’s by London Bridge it meant that we could all grab lunch at Borough Market first (I finally tried a salt beef bagel and YUM. Not sure I can ever go back). Plus, after Vinopolis we walked the 15 minutes to the Southbank and to the Mulberry Bush Pub which served yummy food and nice drinks (and cheerfully accommodated our table of 14!). We were also able to hop on the Thameslink at Blackfriars at the end of the night too, so no pesky tubes for us. Woohoo.
Oh, it was SUCH an awesome day. Can I be your official blogger please Vinopolis? I will take payment in wine, obviously.*
Finally, I couldn't go without sharing this picture from the Vinopolis wine shop. "You know you're in for a good night when there's a polar bear bleeding on the label!"
And this one. That better be the best whisky ever.
*Not a joke.
Testing comments for you...
ReplyDeletewww.kneadwhine.co.uk
Ah this looks like such a great idea! One to suggest to my friends!
ReplyDeleteSophie
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This sounds like so much fun, I have never tried wine tasting but I would love to be more knowledgeable!
ReplyDeleteMaria xxx
That looks like so much fun! I'd love to go wine tasting. I'm also loving the Black Books reference - Life Cry!
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