Wineries buying grapes from local vineyards is not unusual but importing them from overseas is...
Correct. But moving grapes hundreds and even thousands of miles to be vinified is not unusual in big wine producing places such as California, Australia and parts of South America. It’s also surprisingly inexpensive to get wine from Europe into the UK in refrigerated vans. If it was, you would not be able to buy cucumbers at Lidl for 49p. At the moment we’re sourcing around 50% of our grapes from the continent.
Will you source more grapes from the UK as the climate becomes more favourable to viticulture?
I’m not convinced. There is still a lot of vintage variation and disease, and acidity is very high. The other big issue is that the grape varieties that most consumers recognise do not grow easily in the UK, except for Pinot Noir and Chardonnay. British winemakers need to add a lot of sugar and take quite an interventionist approach if they don’t want to end up with something that’s weird. We like working with European grapes because they are consistent and there is a huge choice. The UK is still finding its feet - Belgium makes more wine than us at the moment.
How did Renegade Urban Winery get started?
I became aware of the urban winery concept around 2014. They are quite big in California in Australia. Around that time, I left my job in finance. The idea of bringing winemaking into the city appealed to me because nobody else in the UK was doing it and I wanted to do something that was tangible. We launched the winery in Bethnal Green in 2016 but moved to a much larger location in Walthamstow about three years ago.
How has your winemaking evolved over the years?
Initially I didn’t really have a vision, I just wanted to make wine. We bought grapes from places in Europe and then roughly followed their winemaking traditions. The wines were good, but they were similar to what was available in Europe just with quirky labels. This was problematic because they were a lot more expensive. Very quickly, I realised that we should be following the lead of the craft beer sector and seeking to create new things. Making wine in London gives us a blank canvas. There are no rules.
What does that mean in practice?
We look at wine afresh while still respecting the fact that the grape is the key ingredient and that you can’t make great wine from shit grapes. We play around. For example, we might pick early with some varieties to produce wines that are fresher, use double yeast strain fermentations on certain grapes to give them unusual characteristics, blend different clones of the same grape from different countries, use unusual types of barrels, and even add aromatics, such as hops. We only produce small quantities; a large production for us is 10,000 to 15,000 bottles.
Does your experimental approach ever result in wines that don’t work out?
Yes regularly, although we always trial things before committing to a large batch. For example, a while back we bought some Sauvignon Blanc from Essex. It was a bit underripe, so we used it to make a sparkling wine. We opted to aromatise it with fresh bergamot to give it at earl grey vibe. We called it Breakfast Bubbles. It was disgusting.
Who buys your wines?
Around 50% of our production is served in restaurants. I love the restaurant world so for me it feels natural to be dealing with restaurateurs and chefs. On top of that, our wines require a hand sell. Even in specialist off-trade places they tend to just sit on the shelf. We work with restaurants including Sketch, Fallow, Kricket, Caprice Holdings, Apricity and AngloThai.
Tell us about the hospitality side of your business
We have a bar that serves our wines alongside charcuterie, cheese and a few small plates on the site of our old winery near Bethnal Green tube. At our new winery in Walthamstow, we have a proper commercial kitchen. We have a pop-up in there at the moment run by a chef called Carl Tel that does British seasonal small plates that match well with our wines. Hospitality is hard in a winery setting but it’s an essential part of our model. Our rent is high, so we need to make use of the space outside harvest time (which for Renegade Urban Winery runs from late August to mid November due to the grapes being bought in from lots of different locations). I have just hired a new GM and a new director of hospitality so 2025 is likely to see some changes. I want the hospitality here to be tighter, more wine-led and more experiential.
What are your other plans for this year?
Our current model is not that profitable or scalable. Making wine in London is expensive. On top of that, grapes only grow once a year, we’re not a brewery that can pump out beer every week. The plan is to keep our production at the winery relatively small – around 75,000 bottles a year, which is peanuts really – and continue to target people that really appreciate wine, which is around 1% of the overall wine market. In general, even the people that come and visit us aren’t that interested in how we make the wine they just want something decent at an approachable price they can relate to. With that in mind, I’m seeking investment for a sister brand that will produce everyday house wines in our style that are more approachably priced. I don’t want to say too much more, but it won’t be made grape-to-glass in London, although it will still have a British connection.
