One rather warm day, after brunch in Covent Garden, a small group of us were looking for somewhere cool to sit, preferable near the water on the way home from central. After a short discussion, we knew that Canary Wharf would be a great location to get a breeze along side the river. I then remember Humble Grape has a venue there… 5 minutes later and we were booked.
Humble Grape is Canary Wharf’s waterfront wine bar that offers a range of over 400 artisan wines with views over some of the most iconic buildings in London. We booked via Design My Night and got a great offer of 4x 50ml tasting glasses for £15 per person with a Summer, Sun & Wine theme.
On arrival, we chose a table right next to the water where the breeze was coming in nicely. The staff were all very friendly and were just the right amount of attentive! We were each brought out a sheet of paper with tasting notes and our 4 glasses.
The first wine up was the 2020 Spanish white, Viña Lisonja Verdejo from Bodegas De Alberto. It’s the undisputed Spanish answer to Sauvignon Blanc, and makes the De Alberto’s a very special part of Spanish winemaking history. And my gosh, this was perfect for the warm weather as it was fresh, filled with citrus, pear and melon notes and just the right temperature. It was a really great pairing to our padron peppers!
The second and final white wine was the straw coloured 2019 Laugner Riesling from Domaine Allimant. This wine was filled to the brim with lemon juice, apples, lemon curd & a slightly flintiness. I can imagine this being a rather grand pairing for white fish and seafood.
Our first red wine of the tasting flight, was the Puglian 2020 Schiena ‘Angioino’ Primitivo di Manduria which is rumoured to be up to £30 a bottle. With a rating of 4.4 on Vivino, that we all fully agreed with, this was our favourite wine of the tasting. It’s also been said that the 2020 run of this wine has been their best yet!
The final wine of the tasting was a blend of 70% Syrah with 30% Mourvèdre creating the 2018 Faugeres Rouge, Cuvee Cistus from Chateau De La Liquiere. The 2018 harvest was a very small after problems with mildew, but what was harvest was of a very high quality creating a highly sought after wine!
We also, as mentioned, ordered a plate of padron peppers and sourdough bread with butter just to have some nibbles with our tastings as we all love to see how food changes the flavours.
Humble Grape also do Bottomless Saturday’s where you can enjoy 90 minutes of free-flowing wine which is a choice from their selected list of bubbles, white & red which can be mixed for £15. Each person will need to opt for three small plates or one bigger plate to get the bottomless as such good value but we’re 100% going back to do that as we were really impressed with what we experience this time around!
I'm Squibb Vicious, better known as Haydy!
Happiest with a craft beer in hand, eating til my heart is content or exploring somewhere new.
Here you can read about my adventures!