Welcome to Bottle Apostle and a bit of preliminary waffle as I get used to this blogging lark. We opened our lovely shop in Lauriston Road, Victoria Park in July of this year, to lots of rejoicing amongst locals as well as compliments on the shopfit, designed by Sant Design with lots of lovely visuals by our graphic designer Andrew Fairhurst. Nearly 4 months on we still get students taking photos of our feature logo window for projects.
We stock around 350 wines plus a compact selection of beers and spirits. We don’t like to cram the shop full as we need space for buggies and prams! This means a wine really has to earn its position on the shelves. We shy away from the big brands and focus on the less familiar and hard to find.
We also have 4 shiny Enomatic sampling machines allowing us to have 32 wines available for sampling; just top up an “oyster card” with credit and away you go – samples cost from 35p to £15 for wines from £6 to £300. Weekly tutored wine events are held in our cellar, which are proving very popular. This week, for example, we are having a Fireworks Night-themed supper club (sold out); next week a Nebbiolo tasting. You can also hire our cellar / tasting room for private events.
We’ve had loads of comments about our store design – You can contact our interior designer, Roy Sant on 07970545929.