Where to begin with Gordon’s Wine Bar, Embankment’s worst kept secret? Had word not long been out about this wondrous cavern then I would be reluctant to spread it further, wanting to keep it hidden underground and not overrun as it can so frequently become. I have found a rare lull, helped by England’s imminent kick-off in what will turn out to be another lacklustre game. There are of course no TVs down here.
Gordon’s is a tease. With so many cheeses to choose from, so many wines to try and those big old oak barrels of sherry and port ready to pour behind the bar, along with every nook and cranny revealing a new view towards old London. It’s a drinking den but one takes to it with the respect and reverie of visiting a grand museum. Its relics may be faded and framed by glasses chinking and all manner of conversations, but they are no less priceless.
The surface of my Gewurtztraminer (Domain Michel Fonne, Alsace) ripples with each subway train passing beneath us—I think of Jurassic Park and those telltale signs of T-Rex closing in.
Gewurtztraminer is a wonderful grape which excels in Alsace, a region in northeastern France whose wine labelling more closely resembles its German neighbours than the French to-dos. It’s the only region in France to label its wine with the grape variety, as is the German tradition, rather than by their appellation. This glass is thick with lychee and honey, a little ginger underneath, and weighs heavy on the tongue in a good way.
The summer sun is at long last out so the floor staff are being kept busy outside with the tables running along Watergate Walk—I’m left alone to enjoy the dark and my wine, to eye up the cheese fridges with my gaze falling on a 1kg wheel of Ma Crémière Petit Brie that is anything but ‘petit.’
If you ever happen to trundle into Waterloo Station with no immediate destination (and outside the hours of much of the evening) then do yourself a favour and start walking: first amble towards the river passing Royal Festival Hall, climb up and over Golden Jubilee Bridges—perhaps stopping to admire the view downstream towards St. Paul’s—then head down the steps and through Embankment Station to arrive at the bottom of Villiers Street. You’re not far now.
Step into this hole-in-the-wall and take a moment to let your eyes adjust, to take it all in. You can order the wine of your choosing, it doesn’t matter. Just drink your drink and let Gordon’s take you.
Is Wine Ever Simple?
I recently wrote about trying to get to grips with the complex world of amaro in Bar Italia. Then there’s wine; with all its first and second growths, cru this and grand cru that, free run against press, thick skin over thin, and £10 glass of pinot noir to jaw dropping prices for a bottle of the red stuff (also pinot noir, but from some place called the Côte de Nuits) that can surely only be purchased by someone with so much money they can also afford not to lose too much sleep if it turns out to be corked!
I’ve studied wine and I still feel like I haven’t progressed much past kindergarten. I’m being unkind to myself here, but wine has a certain way of humbling the drinker, making one feel self-conscious at the table when ordering for guests. Not wanting to buy the cheapest, but also not knowing enough to know if a bottle Grüner Veltliner from Austria will go with this dish on this night? I actually love Grüner and would be happy to open a bottle almost any night.
Like amaro, I’m not going to try to educate where I cannot. I will instead share the best book I have come across for those wanting to demystify the noble, yet increasingly playful, subject that is fermented grape juice. Wine Simple by Aldo Sohm does just that.
Sohm is no wine novice. Winner of Best Sommelier in America in 2007, he has since worked as wine director at the famed restaurant Le Bernadin in New York. Wine Simple does not, however, read with all the airs and graces you might expect from a three-star restaurant. It’s accessible and easy to learn from. It helped me appreciate what’s in my glass through better understanding it.
Good wine is pleasure, cheers to that!