Wine bars

[Morat]

There's one near me that is open 6-8pm and serves amazing cocktails. The guy who owns it is the only barman and he really knows his stuff. I like it

[madcow]

There’s a big difference between a wine bar and a Yates’s. The first is posh the second definitely wasn’t.Although there are still quite a few Yates’s ( rebranded as Slug and Lettuce? ) they have been overtaken by ‘Spoons both in bargain pricing and the quality of their clientele.
If you watch the first few minutes of “Get Carter” ,you see the great Michael Caine walking across the road from Newcastle Central and into the  Yates’s Wine Lodge. In the late 70’s, as drunken students we once barged in there with an inflatable doll- nobody batted an eye, they were too busy drinking.

[ElyDave]

There's one over the road from our offices in London - Balls Brothers springs to mind, next to the Gherkin.  Only been in once, it was noisy and IIRC, expensive, but it is That London

[bobb]

I don't consider that place in Nottingham to be a wine bar. It's just a pub. I have had the misfortune of going there several times when I lived up that way.

I have been to a proper wine bar in my home town - some time in the early 90s and it was shit. They only sold wine. Which I suppose is the point, but it closed and is now reopened and just a regular bar.

Also - some middle east saxons will know the White Horse in Chelmsford (the one behind the station) was called BJs in the 80s and was indeed a wine bar. Then everyone realised it was bollocks, so they turned it back into a pub....

[citoyen]

I used to get dragged along to the Blackfriars Wine Bar in Southwark for after-work drinks occasionally, as it was near the office. I don't recall ever drinking wine in there, just overpriced bottles of Italian lager, which is probably missing the point, although I was there more for the company than the booze.

The idea of going out to drink wine seems slightly odd to me. Wine is something you have with dinner. If I'm going out for the purpose of drinking, beer is the preference.

[Robh]

A friend has waxed lyrical about this place, https://gordonswinebar.com   Is it good ?  I'm due a trip to That London soon.

I used to drop there on occasion about 35(?) years ago. It was always busy then, I would expect it to be more so nowadays.

[Gattopardo]

I've been in several, but only drank wine in one.  Two of them were All Bar Ones.  The most expensive was just off Regent Street and is the only option on a Monopoly pub crawl.

<thread merge>Jurek has got me into the habit of calling them Al Barone , in an Italian stylee.

Doesn't everyone?

(In the voice of the Italian Crow hench man, from dangermouse)

[Gattopardo]

Am too young for whine bars.

But I remember only fools and horses with a smile...