Vagabond reveals new English wine releases

UK independent merchant Vagabond has revealed the English wines that will be released from its Battersea urban winery this summer.

Opened this spring, the Battersea bar and attached micro-winery will be producing and then selling a Bacchus from Kent, Pinot Noir rosé from Surrey and ‘Pet-Not’ (a ‘take’ on Pétillant naturel) from Oxfordshire this summer.

Founder and managing director, Stephan Finch, said: “We’re super excited, and incredibly proud, of our first wines to be released from our ground-breaking urban winery project.

“In the middle of an explosion of craft breweries and brewpubs across the UK, we at Vagabond asked ourselves, ‘why should breweries have all the fun?’ So we created London’s first customer-centric urban winery to bring the excitement and education of a top-flight winery to London’s Zone 1.

“Thanks to our stellar winemaker Gavin and an excellent 2017 harvest, Vagabond’s first releases are truly impressive, easily amongst the best English wines we’ve ever come across (and that’s saying something).”

Winemaker Gavin Monery added: “For years the London food scene has taken the best people, the best ingredients and the best ideas from around the world and we’re just an extension of that. We’re sourcing grapes from top quality sites across the UK and making wines with the same techniques and attention to detail as the best estates in the world. English wines are gaining in popularity and London has been at the centre of the global wine trade for 200 years, so it was a perfect fit for us to locate a winery in the city.”

Although dedicated to producing English wines, the winery will also produce wines sourced from grapes outside of the UK with wines from Limoux and South Africa scheduled for release later this year.