England rugby captain opens wine bar

England’s rugby captain Chris Robshaw has opened a wine bar in Winchester with his friend and former Hampshire cricketer Kevin Latouf.

Chris Robshaw. Credit Sky Sports

Black White Red on Jewry Street in the Hampshire city runs as a coffee bar during the day and becomes a wine bar at night.

Wines are available to buy at retail price, with a £5 corkage charge to drink in.

While Latouf will be the hands-on partner in the venture, the Harlequins flanker aims to visit the bar once a week to help out with wine tastings.

Chris and Kevin at their new venture. Credit Kevin Quigley

Robshaw is already planning a series of wine tastings centered around rugby playing nations, from Australia and New Zealand to Argentina.

“There will be special tastings during the autumn internationals, so when England play Australia, we’ll have an Australian evening, when we play Argentina we’ll be trying out their wines and the same for New Zealand,” the 27-year-old told the Daily Mail.

His plan to open a coffee shop-cum-wine bar with Latouf has been two years in the making.

“Kevin’s family have always been involved in the food industry and he was working for Laithwaite’s when we were house sharing in London.

“A lot of people are into coffee at the moment and we thought it would be a good concept to open a place that served wine too,” Robshaw told the Mail.

“We decided to open in Winchester because Kevin is based there. I’ve got an eye on what happens after I’ve stopped playing rugby,” he added.