WINE TASTING AT VINOPOLIS

How much do you know about wine? I'm lucky enough to have been on quite a few wine tastings and talks, and have a brother who is the ultimate wine buff, but if you're not sure what makes one wine sweeter, or tastier, or fruitier than the next, then I know the best place for you to find out. According to Google, Vinopolis is "a London visitor attraction operated by Wineworld London that presents the subject of wine and oenology through exhibits and wine tastings". It is essentially a wine museum, where you can eat, drink and learn about wine. I visited for one of their Wine Tasting Experiences, and though I didn't learn anything new, I had a lovely time sampling some wines I otherwise wouldn't have come across.


The Wine Tasting Experience at Vinopolis starts with a 15 minute talk from one of their expert sommeliers who guides you through how to tell how high the wine's alcohol content is, describe the wine's flavours and judge the sweetness of the wine just by looking at it. I'm not going to spoil this lesson for you, so if you want learn about those things, then go along to a tasting.
 
After the wine class is over you're given your voucher, which has either 7 (£27), 12 (£32) or 16 (£38) tokens on it, and you are let loose to try the wines at your leisure. I must say, I was kind of expecting 100s of wines to choose from so was a little disappointed with the selection, but they rotate wines, and feature a new set of wines each month, and while there weren't as many different wines as I thought, there is a great selection, a lot of which I'd never heard of.
 

 
What I did really like about the wine tasting at Vinopolis was the information provided. You are given your voucher card, and slot it into whichever machine you want to try the wine from. A small amount is dispensed into your glass, and then information about that particular wine is sent directly to your email address - very clever considering visitors probably wake up the next morning with a slightly fuzzy head, not being able to remember which wine was which! Wines vary in 'price' from 1 token to 6 tokens depending on their value, so if you have a 12 token voucher, you could try 2 different expensive wines, or 12 different cheaper ones.
 

 

 

 
My favourite of the was the FMC Chenin Blanc from South Africa, above. It was nice to try something I would never normally pick out when shopping for wine. You can choose from white, red, sparkling or fortified wines as well as vodka, gin and absinthe in the spirits section, and there is loads of information about each wine, as well as posters all the building with information on wine in general and the regions that produce it.
 
If you need food to soak up the booze, Vinopolis has 5 bars and restaurants on site, including a tapas bar which serves meat and cheeses in the tasting area itself. I was tempted to stay on for a steak at the restaurant, but sadly to rush off to a friend's play in Southbank straight after our tasting. If you do go along to Vinopolis for tasting, then these super cute images on Cup of Jo's latest blog post would be a really handy tool for directing you to wines you'll like.