The "icons" case contains wines you may otherwise never try, but be careful, you can spend as much on one sample here as in the rest of the machines combined... The Sampler on Upper Street in Islington has just become my new favourite wine store. It's not exactly local to me, and it doesn't necessarily stock all my favourite wines. So, how did it get to be my favourite? Quite simply, it's got an unbeatable selection of wines open for tasting every day.
I'd arranged to meet a buddy from my time at the WSET school for a tasting trip. We couldn't have chosen a better way to spend the afternoon. The staff just let us get on with it, and yet were there for conversation or information if needed. We never felt under any obligation to buy anything and spent 3 hours working our way through the 80 wines on offer.
I'd arranged to meet a buddy from my time at the WSET school for a tasting trip. We couldn't have chosen a better way to spend the afternoon. The staff just let us get on with it, and yet were there for conversation or information if needed. We never felt under any obligation to buy anything and spent 3 hours working our way through the 80 wines on offer.
Of course, this doesn't come free. The open wines are perfectly preserved in Enomatic machines. You buy a card (which is valid for a year), with as much or as little credit on it as you'd like (minimum £10). Simply take a glass to the machine of your choice, debit the card, and receive 25ml, 50ml or 75ml of the wine of your choice.
We opted for the 25ml pours so that we could sample the maximum possible range of wines. I believe I tasted around 15 that afternoon, and probably sampled a few sips from around 10 of my friend's selection. It was just like being back at wine school again.
I won't bore you with tasting notes on each of the wines, because the Sampler kind provide those on a label beside each wine and 25 tasting notes could get rather tedious. Suffice to say the range was astonishing. My wine school chum and I both got to taste several things we'd never experienced before, we learned a lot and both went away with a bottle or two.
The only downside to the day was that the bottle of Nostros Chilean Chardonnay (£9.99) that I bought because the tasting was so beautiful, was affected by cork taint. This can happen to any wine with a cork closure, but it was a massive disappointment. I'm sure the people at Sampler would have dealt nicely with my problem if I lived any closer, but I was not in a convenient location for it to be worthwhile taking the wine back.
We opted for the 25ml pours so that we could sample the maximum possible range of wines. I believe I tasted around 15 that afternoon, and probably sampled a few sips from around 10 of my friend's selection. It was just like being back at wine school again.
I won't bore you with tasting notes on each of the wines, because the Sampler kind provide those on a label beside each wine and 25 tasting notes could get rather tedious. Suffice to say the range was astonishing. My wine school chum and I both got to taste several things we'd never experienced before, we learned a lot and both went away with a bottle or two.
The only downside to the day was that the bottle of Nostros Chilean Chardonnay (£9.99) that I bought because the tasting was so beautiful, was affected by cork taint. This can happen to any wine with a cork closure, but it was a massive disappointment. I'm sure the people at Sampler would have dealt nicely with my problem if I lived any closer, but I was not in a convenient location for it to be worthwhile taking the wine back.
I've included a selection of photos of the wines we tasted. It was fascinating to try so many Decanter award winners, and also such a huge variety. Purple Teeth will be organising a field trip to The Sampler soon, so if you'd like to come along, taste some wines, and learn a bit more about it, just get in touch and we'll try to coordinate some dates in mid-February. Cheers!
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