What do you get when you cross eighteen red, white and rose wine samples, a glass of beer, two Bombay Sapphire cocktails and four shots of Absinthe with an empty stomach? VERY DRUNK, that's 
what. And I should know. A few weeks ago, purely for research purposes of course, Dan and I ventured down into the depths of London’s underground to discover the magic of Vinopolis – a literal taste of brilliance built on ancient Roman foundations and spread over two and a half acres beneath the arches of a Victorian railway viaduct. As if that’s not cool enough, it’s filled with booze.
We had to wait 45 minutes for a sampling class when we first got there, so we wandered round for a bit, learning all about how wine is made and carefully reading every lovingly designed exhibit. Sort of. Oh, alright, yes, we headed straight to the first wine room and filled our glasses with the good stuff. Well it would have been silly to wait around when, in a room filled with vines and expert smiles, we could taste the delights of pretty much any country in the world, fresh from the rim of a shiny new glass. Delicious.
Eventually a nice little man gave us a talk about how one should taste wine properly, without spilling half on the floor of a dingy old man’s pub near the office, as a bemused, ageing war veteran informs you of the growing red crust around your mouth. The proper procedure amused Dan, who until that point believed that the glass to mouth to jukebox to dancing on table action was as complex as the whole thing got. Luckily for me, I’m a bit of a connoisseur because not only did I recently take eight wine tasting classes at the LSE, I only got horrendously drunk to the point of forgetting everything I’d learned in six of them. Proper wine tasting it seems, is a world of metaphors, where nothing just tastes like grapes. The taste is quite often replaced by a feeling, such as “walking through a field of clover in June, watching ladies picnic on jam sandwiches.” Bizarre.
A couple of hours later, most of which was spent in the Whiskey Room sampling Scotland’s finest, (one of which was so smoked it tasted like the liquefied remains of a garden bonfire) we headed to the Bombay Sapphire Lounge for a gin binge. The soothing room bathed us in blue and was somewhat reminiscent of a posh New York cocktail bar. Well it definitely didn’t feel like we were sipping our drinks in a hole in the ground beneath a London bridge.
Some time later and by now, suitably sizzled, we wound up in the Absinthe room, where a girl with a greenish tinge was boiling up the stuff on a spoon with sugar, or something very weird. I thought I was hallucinating before I’d even tasted any and we’ve all heard the stories about this potent brew. Oh yes, it's banned in the US and Canada, as well as most of Europe, but widely available to the general public using a token system right here at Vinopolis. Bring it on!
Four shots and two beer tokens in the brewery later, I do remember sharing a bowl of pasta in an Italian restaurant with Dan and I think I may have had a beer, although it could have been water. Hmmm. The walls were gold and the lights were red, I think, although they were moving around a bit. I'm told we got the bus home.... who knows. I do remember, however, that a night at Vinopolis opened my eyes as well as my stomach to the joys of wine tasting, and the experts on hand to share their knowledge left us both thirsty for more. After a big pint of water, of course… - By Becky Wicks
Book Vinopolis, now 2 for 1 in May
PS:
yes yes! vinopolis is wicked, i had a great time there and got surprisingly sozzled...
Posted by: spank mcwhirter | 04/05/2006 at 05:36 PM