Wine in London isn’t all chain bars and overpriced house red. Some of the city’s best glasses are poured in places most people walk straight past — a cellar that’s barely changed in over a century, a rooftop named after a piece of broadcasting history, a basement that used to be a Victorian author’s office, and a cellar stocked by growers who’ve been making wine since the Middle Ages.

A cellar that time forgot

One of our stops has been pouring wine since 1890, under an old “Free Vintner” charter — a medieval right that let certain wine merchants trade without needing a licence from the City. The building itself goes back further still: Samuel Pepys lived above it in the 1660s, and over the centuries it’s been a government office, a seed merchant’s warehouse, and a rooming house. When the current owners renovated, they made a point of keeping the cobwebs. It’s one of the most atmospheric rooms in London, candlelit and barely touched by time.

A rooftop with a radio secret

High above the city, one of our stops sits on a building with a surprising claim to fame: it’s where Britain’s first regular radio broadcasts went out, back in 1922. Today, instead of radio waves, you get 180-degree views over the Thames and the City skyline, and a cocktail list that still nods to its broadcasting past.

A speakeasy in a novelist’s old office

Tucked into a basement is a bar that used to house the offices of one of Victorian London’s most famous novelists. These days it’s unrecognisable — peacock motifs, feather-print walls, Edison bulbs, and an original Salvador Dalí painting on the wall — but the literary history is still there if you know where to look.

Wine, direct from the source

Our last stop skips the middlemen entirely. It’s a cellar-like room with exposed brick and candlelight, stocked through direct relationships with small Italian producers — including a biodynamic estate that’s been making wine since the 1300s. One of their wines picked up a major industry award this year.

See it for yourself

On our Secret Wine Bars of London tour, we take you from rooftop to cellar across all four of these stops, with the full stories behind each one. Three hours, four wine bars, zero chain pubs.