I hadn’t ventured as far East as Bethnal Green in a long time so last Friday’s antics were a refreshing change of scenery.
We visited The Hive of Vyner Street for a natural wine tasting evening. It’s situated off Cambridge Heath Road and surrounded by traditional East End boozers for which The Hive is quite the opposite.
It’s a modern all-day -all-night hangout with a newly launched Vegetarian Aperitivo menu, not a plate of pie & mash in sight!
Daro Corradi of Passione Vino was our host for the evening. He taught us of the Nebiolo grape, a red wine grape linked to the Piedmont region in Italy. He told us the varying wines we would try would all be of totally different style, namely down to the climate they were grown in.
We sipped on…
– La Ca Nova; a complex grape from the North West bordering France. It was juicy, rich and medium in body.
– Marco Fay; made by the same grape but lighter and fruitier. The grape is plucked from mountains 600m above sea level giving it its floral, drinkable notes.
– Burlotto; from Barolo town. The tannin was prominent in this glass. Tannin comes from the skin of the grape and it’s what gives your mouth a dry texture after drinking it.
– Elio Sandri; a fuller bodied wine, earthy and dry.
The Aperitivo menu was the perfect accompaniment to the wines. We sampled the Raw Pizza Bites topped with juicy sun dried tomatoes, and the Roasted Aubergine served on delicious sourdough and topped with goats cheese and a drizzle of pesto.
To finish…
– We can’t remember the name (things got a little hazy!). What we do know is it was made with dried grapes, traditionally used in sweet dessert wines. However this was a dry wine, with a strong alcohol content!
If you’d like to delve in to the grape family tree, keep an eye out for upcoming events at The Hive here.
286-290 Cambridge Heath Rd
London
E2 9DA
