Exploring London

Posted by Lara Masters at 09:20 on 26 Nov 2008

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I’ve been reviewing sites around London for the latest edition of “Rough Guide to Accessible UK”. I’ve lived in London all my life but researching for the book brought home how complacent I’ve been in exploring this magnificent, eclectic and luminous city.

For instance I found there is a vast wetland area in Barnes over-run with ornithological rarities (WWT London Wetland Centre), an art deco palace in Greenwich (Eltham Palace) and a wine-tasting route in the South Bank (Vinopolis).  
Ducks are cute and art deco is tres chic ma’meouiselle but traversing the many wine routes around the globe and learning how to drink and appreciate the nuances of wine and other alcoholic beverages? Dix points! That’s what I call a day out!

At Vinopolis, I concentrated hard in the wine-tasting class but slurping, swilling and observing the number of “legs” takes some skill. Being a perfectionist I persevered with the technique as I traversed continents sampling an array of wines, champagnes and spirits and managed to get quite an impressive slurp on. I didn’t use the “spittoon” as it seemed wasteful spitting out a good vintage, especially now I was educated in their laborious fermentation processes. As a result, I consumed a fair bit of alcohol in the name of research for my piece. I am a consummate professional so didn’t want to leave a rum unsampled or neglect to try a Bombay Saphire cocktail or naysay a nip of 10 year old malt merely because my alcohol to blood ratio had tipped in favour of the strong stuff.

Writing reviews is fun.

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