London Urban Winery Crawl

Renegade trucks grapes from France, Italy, Spain, Portugal and Germany at exactly 2°C so fermentation doesn't start on the M25. In a Walthamstow railway arch, Warwick Smith makes 12-14 wines per year. Sergio Verrillo trained at Domaine de Montille in Burgundy, then came to Battersea and made 'Tamesis' — the first wine grown AND made in London since the Roman occupation. London Cru sits in a Victorian building that was a gin distillery before it held Chardonnay tanks. The city that ran the global wine trade for centuries is finally making its own.

What to do there

6 things to do

1. 1 Watch Grapes from Tuscany Get Crushed in E17 Wine · Price: moderate

   Where: Unit 7, Lockwood Way, E17 5RB — take the Victoria Line to Blackhorse Road and walk 8 minutes through the industrial estate. The building looks like a warehouse, which is exactly what it is.

   What: Warwick Smith spent 15 years in asset management before founding Renegade in a Bethnal Green railway arch in 2016, inspired by the American and Asian urban wineries. In a former industrial unit in Walthamstow, he's turning hand-harvested organic grapes from Tuscany, the Douro, and Herefordshire into 12-14 wines a year — then bottling them right here in E17. The secret: grapes arrive by refrigerated truck set to exactly 2°C, cold enough to stop wild fermentation from starting on the M25. They hit London already cold, already alive. Nothing like this happens anywhere else in England.

   How: Book the Saturday afternoon Winery Tour + Tasting (£27.50 per person as of July 2026, one hour, four pours, Saturday 14:00 or 18:00, sold through DesignMyNight). You'll stand in the working winery — tanks, barrels, the press — while the team walks you through what's fermenting RIGHT NOW. Then taste 4 wines. Ask which grapes came from furthest away. Ask what they're currently racing back from Europe.

   Backup: There are no Thursday tours — Renegade's published calendar for 30 July to 3 October 2026 lists winery tours on SATURDAYS only (Thursdays at E17 are the Cheese & Wine Club and a live pianist evening, Fridays are Pinot & Bambino). You can walk in for a glass at the bar, but the Walthamstow bar is closed Monday to Wednesday: Thursday 17:00-23:00, Friday 12:00-23:00, Saturday 12:00-23:00, Sunday 12:00-18:00. The mezzanine restaurant does wine + small plates if you want to linger.

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2. 2 Find the Wine That Breaks Every European Rule Wine · Free

   Where: At the Renegade tasting table or bar, same location.

   What: Renegade's radical move was realising that English wine has no tradition — and that's a superpower, not a weakness. No appellations. No rules about what goes with what. So they take Sauvignon Blanc grapes from Bordeaux and ferment them using a New Zealand yeast strain, creating a French-Kiwi hybrid that exists nowhere else on earth. They make orange wines, skin-contact whites, styles that have no name yet. This is the front line of what English wine is becoming.

   How: During your tasting (included in the £25 tour), ask: 'Which wine here would get rejected in France?' The team will know exactly which one you mean. Taste it. The point isn't that it's better — the point is that it shouldn't exist, and it does, because London has no rules to follow.

   Backup: The wine list at the bar includes the full range. Ask for the most unusual bottle on the list.

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3. 3 Taste Burgundy Pinot Noir Under a Railway Arch Wine · Price: moderate

   Where: Arch 41, London Stone Business Estate, Broughton Street, SW8 3QR. Enter from Broughton Street (opposite Emu Road junction). Nearest station: Queenstown Road Overground, 5-minute walk. This is Battersea — about 45 minutes from Walthamstow by Tube.

   What: Sergio Verrillo grew up in the US, son of Italian and Hungarian immigrants who made wine in the back garden. He became a Michelin-starred sommelier in London (Maze, Chez Bruce). Then he earned his winemaking degree at Plumpton College and spent three years as a travelling winemaker: Kent → Napa Valley's Flowers Winery → Domaine de Montille in Burgundy (one of the most revered Pinot Noir estates on earth) → Stellenbosch → Ata Rangi in New Zealand. Then he rented a railway arch in SW8 and started making English single-vineyard Pinot Noir in the Burgundian tradition. Wild fermentations. Used Burgundy barrels. Minimal sulphur. All within 2 hours of the arch.

   How: Walk in Friday 16:00-21:00 or Saturday 17:30-21:30 (free entry — just buy a glass at cellar door prices). The bar is a seasonal summer operation; it reopened on 1 May 2026. Or book the Saturday afternoon tour (£25, ~1.25 hours, 4 wines): email info@blackbookwinery.com. When you taste the Pinot Noir, ask: 'Which vineyard is this from and when did you last visit?' Blackbook gives equal credit to growers — they'll have a story.

   Backup: If the tour is sold out, the Friday/Saturday walk-in gives you direct access. You're sitting among the barrels — the winery IS the bar.

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4. 4 Ask About Tamesis — London's First Wine Since Rome History · Free

   Where: Same location — Arch 41, Blackbook Winery, SW8 3QR.

   What: In 2018 Sergio Verrillo did something no one had done since the Roman occupation of Britannia: he made a wine from grapes actually grown INSIDE London. Working with Forty Hall Vineyard — north London's certified organic vineyard in Enfield — he secured just over 1 tonne of Bacchus grapes. The wine is called Tamesis, named after the Roman name for the Thames. A wine from London, named for the river that divides it, made for the first time in nearly 2,000 years. Not from Surrey. Not from Kent. From within the M25.

   How: Ask the team: 'Do you still make Tamesis?' Whether it's on the current list or not, this question opens a conversation about what it means to make wine in a city — about Forty Hall Vineyard's remarkable existence in the London suburbs, about the Romans who planted vines here first. Even if Tamesis isn't poured that day, the story is free.

   Backup: Forty Hall Vineyard in Enfield (EN2 9HA) is open to the public and occasionally sells tickets to its own harvest events — worth a dedicated day trip if you want the vineyard itself.

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5. 5 Discover London's First Winery in a Gin Distillery History · Price: moderate

   Where: 21-27 Seagrave Road, SW6 1RP — tucked down a little alleyway off the main road, two minutes' walk from West Brompton station (fifteen from Earls Court), opposite the Atlas pub on Seagrave Road. Look for the sign on the alley entrance.

   What: Cliff Roberson has spent 60 years in the wine trade. He founded Buckingham Vintners in 1972 importing bulk wine to UK supermarkets. In 2013, inspired by the craft brewery explosion, he converted a Victorian warehouse — a former gin distillery — into London's first urban winery. The same building where botanicals were once macerated for gin now holds precision temperature-controlled fermentation tanks producing award-winning Chardonnay. In 2023, on their 10th anniversary, they did something no other urban winery had done: bought their own vineyard. Foxhole in West Sussex. 6.5 hectares. Pinot Noir, Pinot Gris, Bacchus. Urban winery becomes grape grower, 10 years in.

   How: Book a tour (£28 per person) at londoncru.co.uk/whatson — Saturdays at 2:30pm or 5:30pm, or Tuesday evenings at 6:30pm. The 60-minute tour covers the building's history, the winemaking process, then 4 wines. Email hello@londoncru.co.uk with your preferred date. Ask specifically: 'Which wine in today's tasting came from the Foxhole Vineyard?'

   Backup: There are no drop-ins. London Cru states it is not open for tours and tastings except by prior appointment; you can buy the wines online and collect them from the winery.

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6. 6 Sample from Tank at the UK's Largest Urban Winery Adventure · Price: low · Optional

   Where: 9 Deal Porters Way, Canada Water, SE16 2AJ. From Fulham, take the Overground to Canada Water (about 30 minutes). The Dock Shed is a brand-new building right on the water — the winery is on the ground floor.

   What: Vagabond opened this in December 2025 — 6,000 square feet, 100-tonne working cellar, capacity for 100,000 bottles per year. By a large margin the biggest winery ever built inside the M25. In 2026 Vagabond was named Producer of the Year at the Independent English Wine Awards, with Solena batch 004 taking the trophy for best alternative or experimental still wine. You can taste wine directly from tank or barrel (they actually open a tap), or use self-pour machines to work through 100+ wines from around the world. The Vagabond Academy runs education sessions on site.

   How: Walk in — no booking required for the bar. For guided winery tours and winemaking workshops, check vagabondwines.co.uk/locations/canada-water. A glass from the self-pour machines starts at a few pounds. End the crawl here with wine poured directly from a tank, overlooking the Canada Water dock.

   Backup: Vagabond also operates at Battersea Power Station, 10 minutes walk from Blackbook. If you'd rather skip Canada Water, hit Battersea Vagabond after Blackbook instead — same self-pour concept, same winery credentials.

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Insider tips

• Renegade: E17, 40-60k bottles/year, book tours ahead

• Blackbook: Victorian arches, Pinot Noir focus, walk-ins OK

• London Cru: Closest to central, next to West Brompton station

• All three within Tube distance - no car needed

• Book Renegade first as most popular