A conversation with urban winemaker, Sergio Verrillo

How do you make fantastic British wine in a railway arch in South London?

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Back in September we gave you our picks for Open House Weekend. One of those picks was for Blackbook Winery, who were somehow managing to create “English quality wines” in a railway arch in Battersea.

The founders of Blackbook described themselves as “unashamed Londonphiles,” who “seek to reflect the vibrancy, colour, culture and energy of London in our wines, how they look, feel and taste”. So we got in touch with of those founders, Sergio Verrillo, to talk about how someone who was brought up in the States by Italian and Hungarian immigrants ended up making wine under a railway in Battersea, what exactly an ‘urban winery’ is, and where the best places in London might be for drinking good wine and (as it turns out…