Of drinking wine in Britain

Give me a bowl of wine, in this I bury all unkindness.

This is also available on Hudin.com to Personal & Commercial subscribers.

While the dinner was a pop-up, the location was anything but clandestine being set at Mortimer House in London. The food wasn’t secret, radical, or some weird fusion thing served off the back of an endangered animal or naked reality TV star. It was instead, modern Ghanaian dishes by Zoe Adjonyoh. A delicious menu, it covered the greatest regional hits I’ve had the pleasure of eating from roadside restaurants throughout the country. The only hint that it was a pop-up format was that upon arrival, we were whisked up to a sixth-floor study set up with 12 total seats between two large, “communal” tables.

We sat in between two couples at one of these tables for six. To my left were an irrelevant local couple as keen on not talking to anyone else at the table as they were on only ordering cocktails with their meal, yet having no idea what St~Germain was. To the right were a Nigerian/Azerbaijani couple who epitomized a modern London. What was more notable about this far more interesting couple was that they represented the “modern” British wine drinker in their bottle choice: a bubbly that wasn’t Champagne with a retail price around £12. And of course, while blissfully happy with their wine, they wished they knew more about wine.

This couple would most definitely not represent the “typical” British wine drinker as the average bottle price hovers around £6 these days. But, in talking to them about what they usually drink, it showed what I simply love about the wine scene in Britain in that you can pretty much find whatever you want. They further emphasized this aspect when saying that there was no one wine or style they adhered to.

British wine buyers are masterful at providing wondrous options and at scarily-affordable prices–The Wine Society being the most amazing entity in my opinion. The forgettable couple to the left dryly finished their cocktails, said nothing, and left. We continued to talk with this couple to the right however and, given that they worried about their perceived lack of wine-choosing ability, asked us for advice on finding the best wines in London to which we both said, “It’s simple: pay more.”