London’s wine bar scene has come on leaps and bounds in the last few years. Far from stuffy old places, London has embraced the Parisian style of clean modern wine bars with unpretentious staff championing independent winemakers. Many specialise in low intervention, biodynamic and natural wines, and if you love that skin contact stuff, there are plenty of places to sip on orange wines too. One of our favourites, Weino BIB in Dalston even focuses on boxed wines which are more sustainable as they use less glass and packaging. For the best of the best low-intervention wine bars in London, get your hands on the Sausage Press Natural Wine Guide and drink your way around the lot.
A range of wine bars that celebrate lesser-known winemaking regions have popped up in the city but if you prefer the Old World classics, a full bodied Merlot or a crisp Sauvignon Blanc, you won’t struggle to find those either. There are even urban wineries bottling the good stuff right here in capital too. And whilst vino is the focus, many of these wine bars also serve up great food meaning you can drop in for a glass (or a bottle) or for a full-on dinner. So if you’re wondering where the best wine bars in London are, well you’ve come to the right place.
Best Wine Bars in London Highlights
The Drop is a cute little wine bar with organic and low intervention wines and a pretty banging menu of snacks and heartier dishes. The space is very cute and perfect for a wine bar with exposed brick walls and low arched ceilings due to the building’s heritage as a coal store.
Weino BIB started life as a pop-up serving wines from bags in a box making them not only better for the environment but also cost effective too, which essentially means you get cheaper glasses of great vino. The wines are mostly natural and you can also bring your own bottle which you can fill up from the boxes and kegs to take-home.
If you’re after natty wine and a real good time, head downstairs at Rondo at The Hoxton, Holborn to Rondo La Cave. The wine bar boasts a banging natural wine list, including London’s largest selection of bubbles, and it’s also running as an incubator space, meaning there’ll be rotating roster of chefs and pop-ups hitting the stove.
The original Sager + Wilde wine bar on Hackney Road can be credited with kickstarting a new breed of wine bars across London. It’s still one of London’s best, dark and cosy with a great selection of wines by the glass at non-ridiculous markups. Inside railway arches in Bethnal Green isn’t the first place you’d look for a winery but it’s where you’ll find one. Renegade is an urban winery that buys grapes from across the UK and Europe and turns them into wine right here in London.