D&D reveals fine wine retail details

As D&D London unveiled further details of the four dining ventures to be housed within The Old Bengal Warehouse near Bishopsgate, Nicolas Clerc MS, head sommelier at the group’s Le Pont de la Tour restaurant outlined his ambitions for the project’s fine wine shop.

Nicolas Clerc MS

Due to open in September along with its sister outlets, New Street Wine Shop is set to offer around 600 bins with a focus on Bordeaux and Burgundy.

Setting out how the venue would bolster London’s crowded off-licence and fine wine scene, which already includes a smaller D&D retail area within Le Pont de la Tour, Clerc told the drinks business: “Our location will be just 25 metres down from Liverpool Street station. There are offices all around and the idea is to get people on their way home or if they want to share a few bottles with colleagues after work. We’ll also be serving some light dishes, charcuterie, that kind of thing.”

As well as deciding the final wine selection on offer, Clerc has yet to set the corkage fee to be charged on any bottles customers choose to drink in the venue’s bar area. However, he anticipated a “competitive” flat charge of “around £8 to £10”.

In keeping with a number of bars around the UK capital, New Street Wine Shop will feature three Enomatic machines, allowing customers the chance to taste highlights from the wine range, which Clerc promised would include “mature vintages of Bordeaux as well as young vintages”. Alongside the outlet’s Bordeaux and Burgundy specialism, Clerc is in the process of compiling a range of “top Champagnes and growers’ Champagnes”, as well as “areas of the world which are yet to be really discovered”, such as Croatia or Slovenia.

The wines will be merchandised by country with colour coded labels to offer customers additional stylistic guidance to Clerc’s own knowledge base. “So green will mean a lighter, crisper style”, explained Clerc by way of example.

Currently working on the wine offer for each of The Old Bengal Warehouse’s venues, as well as his main role at Le Pont de la Tour, Clerc expects to begin working full time on the new project from July until it launches in September. “Then we’ll see”, he concluded.

Alongside New Street Wine Shop, the 10,000 square foot site in the City of London will include the New Street Grill, promising “a modern take on the British grill restaurant”; Fish Market, serving “the best of the British seaside”; and Old Bengal Bar, headed by mixologist Milos Popovic. The project marks part of a major expansion ambitions from D&D London.

Describing the venue as “an exceptional building with a fascinating history” David Loewi, managing director of D&D London commented, “The Old Bengal Warehouse will be a beautiful venue, but mostly it will be about food and wine. Our hope is to create places that the founders of the East India Company themselves would have enjoyed frequenting.”