Saturday 3rd October is the day for the urban harvest. If you have not contacted us already there is still a chance to sign up to have your urban grapes included in this year’s harvest and made into wine. Give us a call on 07944983286 / 07857848046 for further information.
The Thames Festival was a brilliant day and it was great to see so many familiar, and new, faces turning up on the day. We sold a fair few glasses of wine and Southwark Bridge was a beautiful place to be as the sun set and we watched the nice people on the bridge enjoying a glass of wine.
It was great to have a bar that was designed by the lovely people organising the Thames festival (Clare, Kitty, Kath etc) who all made it a pleasure to work on . All very cool. The bar was also decked out with grapes grown in South London gardens and it was fun that people were able to eat a grape or two as they waited for the speedy and highly efficient Urban Wine Events team to serve them a glass of English or French wine.
Thanks to the Wombles recycling project for providing the chillers and Newham Food Access Project for helping with the grapes for the grape pressing.
Only a quick rest and then it’s on to the harvest on October 3rd and all the madness that this will bring!
Keep your eyes peeled for the Urban Wine film that wil soon be uploaded onto this website!
We are soon to add a merchandise section to the website. Please contact us if you want to place an order for an original Urban Wine t-shirt.
Hello all! We will be selling our wine and vines before Christmas this year and so please contact us if you want to be added to the UWC mailing list. It’s lovely that the sun’s out again and the grapes on my vine are looking great for the harvest.
I want to create a scene from ‘Wacky Racers’ or ‘It’s a Mad, Mad World’ on the way down to Sussex and so anyone with an interesting vehicle who wants to take part in the grape run, please contact me. You will then be part of the great grape magical mystery tour film we are making at moment. Also any musicians (no musos!) who want to collaborate with me on the film score please get in contact. It’s a great life!
Have just purchased a hydrometer that measures the sugar content in grapes to check their suitability for wine production. I am looking forward to testing out this crazy apparatus in all its glory within London gardens. Might wear tweed and recreate a scene from the Time Machine.
Thanks for all the recent comments and all your support in relation to the Urban Wine Company (UWC). As soon as I have got my head around the technology, I will publish the comments. Please bear with me and keep them coming in!
Have decided to make a film with my mates Amy and Flem on the wine making adventure over the next 12 months. Should be fun!
Cycling back from Herne Hill, I stopped off at Brockwell Park community gardens to talk about vines and community gardening with Fabrice one of the garden volunteers. It’s a beautiful place and hidden amongst its walls is a huge selection of fruit and vegetables. I think it’s remarkable that places like this are all over London. The view from the top of the hill in the park is also beautiful, taking in the London Eye and the Gherkin. Pretty apt really. Their greenhouse has a great big vine within it and it’s great that they are cultivating vines at the commuity gardens.
Just a quick note to say that I have been knocked out by how brilliant the folks at Sustain are in bringing together food growers across London. Well done to you guys, especially Poly and thanks for helping us out so many times.
Hopefully this weekend the 1st August will see the feature on the Urban Wine Company out out on News 24. I recently spent time with the BBC team filming in East Sussex. The feature includes an interview with me on the philosophy of urban wine, pretty straightforward really, only nice people allowed, community, no wine snobs , good fun, nice wine, hot cities good for wine, local sourcing, etc. The feature also interviews one of our lovely members in her back garden with vine and then a sample of urban wine at Tooting Broadway tube station. I can wait to see the finished product on the tv and we will upload it to this site when its released.
Back soon for more news!
Hi and sorry for not keeping updating this blog as often as I should. Anyway, just back from a run in the rain and so feeling very motivated to do some writing. I am starting to get a little nervous about the weather as its seemed to rain solidly for the last two weeks and one thing we need this year to ensure lots of good grapes is the sun.
Anyway a time to be more upbeat. The Urban Wine Company will be at the Thames Festival this year and we will be running a wine bar onSouthwarkBridge. The bridge wil be closed to traffic and a long table will be set for people to sit down on and eat, drink and be merry. Its such a great idea and I love the using a bridge in this way. I am really excited about the festival as we will be offering English wine and will bring along our grape vines which we will set up as a portable vineyard for the day. As well as buying some nice localy produced wine, people can come up and find out more about the urban wine company and can sign up on the day for membership and take away further information. They can even take a vine away with them! As well as the wine bar there will be a wine press and the ‘bridge people’ will be able to have a go at grape pressing the old fashioned way. Yes with their feet! The wine will be made into Chateau Bridge down in Sussex and photos from the day will be turned into labels for the wine as a memento of the Thames Festival.
Its going to be absolutely brilliant and if the suns out if promises to be a fun day. I will be at the bar from noon until ten o clock at night and so I would love to meet you if you read this blog come along and say hello.
See you soon and you can also check out the urban wine twitter!!!