Vinopolis World Of Wine

Very enjoyable afternoon spent with about 70 of us in a party. Plenty to taste, but wines lacked quality unless you wanted to pay extra. Nice Bombay cocktail, rum and asbynthe though. Food was basic nibbles and the staff serving the food looked like they had been caught in the headlights, confused and out of their depth when things started to run out.

A visit to this super winetasting venue was a present I received on my birthday so off we went from Reading to Paddington then by tube to just short of Vinopolis.

It is nicely laid out and wines from many parts of the world are represented.
If you are a proper real winetaster you can really get into the swing of things but to some people it seems to be their way of going home rather worse for wear !!

It is interesting to read about the wines you try in the booklet supplied or printed on some of the walls decorated with items from the country in question.

You are not obliged to buy a crate of wine to bring home but some of wines are truly irresistable.

We met some nice people, similarly minded, who talked wines and gave their opinions and we left having had a super day..

A good idea for a birthday present from some you love...Thank you ****

For an afternoon out, this was an interesting and enjoyable experience. The selection of wines available were far too many for us to be able to enjoy, despite having upgraded to the Premium tickets. This left us with the lovely problem of having to choose!

I really enjoyed the introduction to wine at the start of the tour, but a shame it was so short, as I felt it gave a really good idea of how to appreciate the wine. Still, it is branded as an introduction, and you can always learn more later if you’re interested.

As it was a Saturday afternoon, it was really busy, and there was some bustling around the tables to get to the wine. As a result, the staff didn’t really have much opportunity to talk to us much about the different types. Although, depending on what 'region’ you chose, this did vary. The South American region (my fave!) was surprisingly quiet and so had a useful chance to speak wtih the staff about which wine I should choose.

Have to confess, sometimes the staff forget to take your token off you, so should have had 7 samples in total, and ended up with 10. Hooray!

The rum samples at the end were truly awful. You were discouraged from mixing them into a long drink and as a result, I couldn’t drink any of them, which is a shame when we paid more for the upgrade. My dad chose to knock them back (all 3 shots!) just because he’d paid for them, although wouldn’t recommend this after all that wine!

All in all, it was a really lovely afternoon out, and so well situated that we were able to visit Borough Market before hand, and have a walk along the Thames afterwards. Well worth the money.

This place is incredible for any alcohol lover! I went on the champagne tasting tour. It is the most expensive but provides you with the best experience. You get a tour book, a how to taste wine session then tastings of fine wines, champagne and bombay saphire cocktail. It does get busy but it great to understand a bit of background about wine and the countries around the world that produce it. Educational and fun and allows you to become refined in your tasting of alcohol

This is another attraction which offers two for one entry with a train ticket and a leaflet from any station, and therefore I only paid £16 for me and my boyfriend to visit on a very wet and dismal summer’s day. Vinopolis really made our day! On entry, you are given a little wine tasting notebook to write in as you go on your travels, and the idea is that you go on a “tour of the world”, reading about the history of wine and what it is like in different parts of the world, whilst sampling wine from that area. Our tour was fantastic for amateurs like us who knew nothing about wine and just wanted a nice day out, but I think you can get masterclasses if you want a more advanced experience. Anyway, for £8 each we got 5 very generous samples of wine and a very nice cocktail. The staff were all very friendly and willing to recommend samples based on what we liked, and they seemd very knowledgable, offering us lots of information about the wine. We enjoyed looking at the exhibits, savoured the wine tasting and had fun writing comments in our little wine tasting books. There was a little shop at the end where you could buy the wine you’d sampled, but there was certainly no pressure to purchase, and we didnt buy anything. All in all, a fun afternoon out!

This is wine-tasting for the tourbus crowd. The wine is fine, but there’s no real depth to the experience. There is no really fine wine here, and the suspicion lingers that this is more marketing venture than wine experts sharing their passion. Far better, in my opinion, to visit a real winery, such as some of the fine English vineyards some 20 miles south of London. But if you’re pressed for time, and want to experience the “world” of wine in an afternoon, it’s decent value for money.

I’ve been to Vinopolis twice, once by choice and once to accompany someone else whose birthday it was. Both times I went for the most expensive option on the tickets as the only difference between the prices is the number of wine samples you get.

Before arriving at the sampling, you’ve got a series of descriptions and videos about the different grapes and regions where wine is made and a little lesson on how to drink wine and appreciate it fully (describing what legs are etc.).

After all of this you can sample various tots of the different wines they have. This is where you’ll probably spend most of your time.

They appear to be branching out into more alcohol types than just wine these days with a little gin section after the wine tasting and a whiskey section at the end. They even had a stall at this year’s Beer Exposed.

It’s fun to do once, but it’s not got the appeal for repeat visits.