Wine
At artisan&vine our objective is to bring your taste buds as close as possible to the fantastic produce of artisans and vineyards. To do this, all of our 120+ wines are either naturally or locally produced. We think you'll taste the difference this proximity to the grapes brings and we are proud to be London's first wine bar to specialise in local and natural wines.
1. Natural wines - organic or biodynamic, low yielding vineyards; minimal or no added sulphites; indigenous yeasts; no added flavours or preservatives (if there are tastes of oak, it's because the wine was fermented or aged in barrels - not because wood chips were added to a mixture!). Around 95% of our 120+ wines are natural.
2. Local English wines - grapes are grown, fermented and bottled within a two hour drive of Battersea. Around 5% of our 120+ wines are local.
With around 20 English wines and liqueurs, we think we could have London's longest English drinks list. With the remainder of our wines and liqueurs being all natural or biodynamic (more than only organic) we have one of the longest and most interesting natural wine lists in the capital too. Attached is our full wine bar list.
We'd love to share some of these unique flavours with you - our informative, friendly and enthusiastic team are always ready to talk about our diverse and exciting wine list.
NATURAL AND BIODYNAMIC WINES
Organic wines are not what 
they seem. A certified “organic wine” only guarantees you organically grown grapes; the winemaker may add flavours (such as wood chips or caramel), stabilisers (such as sulphur dioxide), and preservatives during the wine making production. This is how mass produced cheap supermarket wines can be created.
Natural wines are wines created with minimal intervention from the wine maker. Natural wine making requires the artisan to carefully attend to all steps of the growing, fermenting, and blending processes, knowing that additives cannot be used to correct the imperfections of nature. This makes natural wines commercially unviable on a mass, low cost scale. Vintages can vary significantly from year to year based on climate conditions, and personal attention means very low yielding vineyards. We think you’ll taste this difference.
The big deal about sulphites
A key differentiating factor of natural wines is the significantly lower – sometimes non-existent – use of added sulphur dioxide (SO2). SO2 is the most widely used and controversial additive in winemaking. It is used to inhibit or kill unwanted yeasts and bacteria, and to protect wine from oxidation. For humans, it’s the main cause of a headache when ‘hung-over’ and can cause potentially fatal allergic reactions.
Sulphites occur naturally in all living things and are present in small quantities even in unsulphured wines. Some natural winemakers add small doses of sulphites to stabilise a wine at the end of the wine making process. These small doses do little or no damage to the flavour of the wine and can help to protect it from being mishandled. Commercial wines may have around four times the amount of SO2 as a natural wine of a similar style.
For more information on natural wines and sulphites, please see http://www.morethanorganic.com/
Our natural wine list
Our wine list varies from season to season. At any given time, around 80% of our wines, liqueurs, and ciders are produced using natural or biodynamic principles.
LOCAL ENGLISH WINES
What does home taste like? Most Britons and visitors to our shores have never tasted an English wine. Our sales have historically been limited by high labour and land costs and relatively poor wine quality. Over the last decade, English winemakers have been working hard, and the flavours are developing with every vintage.
At artisan&vine, we are proud to showcase a broad and interesting range of English wines. We have tirelessly travelled the English countryside to meet winemakers, walk through vineyards, and understand the processes of individual wineries. We’re very excited by what we’ve found and we’re delighted to be sharing it with you. All of the English vineyards we’ve chosen to work with are located within three hours drive of London so that the wine makers can personally visit the bar to talk with you about their wines. It also means that we can organise weekend day trips from the bar to these boutique vineyards. Please see our calendar for a full listing of winemaker visits and tours and our gallery for pictures of previous events. These wines come to you with the lowest possible carbon footprint and the freshest right-off-the-vine flavours.
What does English wine taste like?
England naturally has a cool climate and this produces light, refreshing wines of generally low alcohol content (11-12% abv). We are fast developing a reputation for high quality sparkling wines, which continue to win international awards. The sparkling white wines are characterised by crisp fruit flavours, like melon, lemon and peach; some also have fantastic toasty tones. Still white wines have a high acidity, good for accompanying rich or spicy foods, such as a curry, and they often have light, floral aromas. English roses often present fabulous strawberry flavours and scent. English reds are a little harder to come by; they will either be light with flavours of blackberry and cherry or oaked, with smokey bacon flavours.
You’ll see that most of the English wines in our bar are very young. These are light, fun wines that can be drunk alone or alongside your favourite home cooked meal. Try an ‘English flight’ to sample three of our favourite English wines and discover your new local grape.
For more information on English wines, please see http://www.englishwineproducers.com/
Who makes English wine?
There are over 200 vineyards across the UK, most of them small family owned estates proudly growing a fantastic range of fresh grapes. We’ve selected a few of our favourites to share with you:
Biddenden. Ortega is a popular grape in English wine making and to our taste, no one does it better than Biddenden. For a genuinely unique tasting experience, give this one a whirl. They also produce a range of other full flavour still and sparkling wines.
Bookers. In a country dominated by whites and light sparklies, the real treats from Bookers are the fabulous English red wines. In addition to the Pinot Noir, which a variety of English producers have adopted, Bookers produces a delicious black cherry flavoured Merlot.
Bow-in-the-Cloud. Based in Noah's Ark, Malmesbury, Keith has three acres of land where he single-handedly tends to favourite English grape varieties: Bacchus, Seyval, and Schonburger for delightful sparkling and still white wines.
Brightwell. In Wallingford, Oxfordshire, Bob and Carol really are living “the Good Life”. Dedicated farmers and winemakers, they have produced red and white wines with fantastic aromatic qualities and lingering freshness to taste. Photos of their beautiful vineyard estate, including Bob and Carol in action, can be seen in our gallery pictures of the a&v day trip up to Brightwell for the 2008 UK Vineyards Association Wine Competition Tasting.
Denbies is probably pushing the definition on ‘boutique’ as this is England’s largest single estate vineyard and a beautiful site for events. We’re delighted to include Denbies in our selection not only for the refreshing and diverse wines that head wine maker Marcus creates, but because, based in Dorking, only 20miles from our bar in Clapham, this is as close to a London local wine as it gets!
Plumpton College is a college vineyard and winery based in East Sussex. Here students learn the art of wine making and put it into practice. We think the results are particularly strong in their excellent sparkling wines, which exhibit a delicious sophistication and creamy texture.
Our local wine list
Our winelist varies with the best that the vineyards are producing. At any given time around 20% of our wines, liqueurs, ciders and beers are local.
BEERS, CIDERS AND LIQUERS
At a&v we're always seeking exciting new flavour experiences for you to try. We think we've found some gems with these completely distinctive beverage producers.
Cotswold Country Liqueurs, Esther makes delicious sweet liqueurs that are wonderful chilled and sipped on their own or mixed with sparkling wine for an exciting champagne cockatil.
Heron Valley Organic, Natasha and her team are passionate about oganic apple cider, ginger beer and fruit juices. We vary the wonderful juices we stock to enjoy the full range of flavours.