Humble Grape

There’s been a branch of Humble Grape on Battersea rise for a few years now. This mini chain of wine bars has 5 branches mostly in the city and north London, the Battersea branch being the only one south of the river. My friend the Networker, so called as he has a very successful business introducing people to each other, was enjoying a rare night out from the family and wanted to go somewhere in his words to enjoy good wine that wouldn’t find lurking on supermarket shelves. As the memories of my only previous visit to Humble Grape were rather hazy, I was happy to fall in with his suggestion.

Situated on the extreme east end of Battersea rise, just before it merges in with Clapham Common, Humble Grape is a bit of a slog from Clapham Junction. I’d reserved a table, which as it turned out was a good idea. On the web it looked like there wouldn’t be any trouble in securing a table, but upon arrival it was evident that they did a sterling trade in walk ins, and the main bar was packed.

Our table was at the back of the main bar, and just on the cozy side of small. Cozy was to me the correct epithet for the bar, presenting itself like a cross between a wine cellar and a library in country house hotel. There were a rather larger number of tables for two than you’d expect in a bar. I felt as if I’d accidentally walked into the first dates restaurant.

Both me and the Networker like to combine our thirst for wine, with learning more about the stuff, it makes it easier to justify Saturday mornings if you pretend you’ve been to a night class. To start I’d pre-ordered a flight of 4 50 cl tasting glasses of Italian wines. Flights cost about £13, which seems OK value until you realise that in total volume you’re only getting about the same as a large glass in a pub.

Our drinks arrived promptly and so did the commentary provided by our waiter. I have a confession, I don’t like prosecco, there I’ve said it and will now most likely get drummed out of south west London. To me it’s too gassy, too sweet and too redolent of the times you used to see great big buckets of it at £2.99 a bottle in Spar before it unaccountably became trendy. Our waiter who combined knowledge and obsequiousness in equal measure apparently agreed with me, though he might have just been saying that.

The other 3 wines were a still white of the sort routinely served a second level conferences and a couple of reds one good, one indifferent. It was a pity that the labels and producers were so obscure, if they’d been as recognisable as Jacob’s Creek avoiding them in future would have been a piece of cake.

We ordered some food, relaxed and listened in on the burble emanating from our fellow patrons. A lot of the chat seemed to about favourite travel destinations and what people were like at school, well it might be like the second wine, bland, but it’s probably a better ice breaker than ‘what’s your favourite soup’ that I used to spring on unsuspecting dates in order to create the erroneous impression that I was witty.

The menu at Humble Grape is good, with a nice selection of snacks, small plates and larger courses. There is a strong emphasis on sharing, which the clientele enthusiastically seemed to be embracing. We choose some Padron peppers, which were well cooked, meatballs which were sweet but forgettable and cubed lamb shoulder with rice and pomegranate which we both thought excellent.

Moving onto the wine list proper we ordered a carafe of half a litre of white Burgundy, or two large glasses to use pub measures. This was to me delightful, and had our waiter waxing lyrical about how white wines are undervalued by wine snobs, the irony.

The bill when it came was about £90, so £45 each, which was I feel fair for something that was a cross between an upmarket-drinks and a meal. As we were leaving, I made the fatal observation to the Networker that Humble Grape was something like a curated Vagabonds, the wine bar on Northcote road where you can serve your own wine. To cut a long story short, when I awoke on Saturday, it felt less like I’d been to night school, than on an intensive crash course.

Till the next time.