In London, Wine Finds Its Inner Hipster

In the current issue of the UK’s Imbibe.com Kate Pass sums up the changes in the London wine scene that are engaging a ever-growing community of twentysomethings. While wine has historically been relegated to London’s older, upper class, new wine bars and events are bringing it back down to earth, and even into the streets.

At the pop-up Street Vin, run by Ruth Spivey—who also organized Wine Car Boot, an “event that sees independent wine merchants pitching up in car parks” to pour and sell their wines—wines are drunk in a candle-lit warehouse with “a paper plate full of smoked beef rib.” At Sager + Wilde, a wine bar located on a “a less-than glamorous stretch of Hackney Road,” the cheaper real estate has allowed them to pour a wide selection of wines by the glass for low prices. According to Pass, scene is becoming more attuned to a younger crowd that might otherwise look to cocktails or craft beer. “…consumers have always been interested in drinking good wine with good food, but for too long there has been a compromise outside of the home and restaurant environments. This movement, however, is bringing great wines into bars and even out onto the street.” [Imbibe.com] [Photo: Flickr/Metro Centric]