The Hip Hop Wine Shop, Liverpool

The DJ’s just dropped A Day at the Races, from J5’s seminal Power in Numbers, and I'm pretty sure a guest speaker has mentioned grapes and fisting in the same sentence. Yes, this is most definitely going to be a very different kind of wine festival.

Only ten minutes in and Camp and Furnace’s Hip Hop Wine Shop is living up to its self-professed aim to eschew the usual stuffiness of oenological events and "spin the traditional wine festival on its head." Already the door guy has said “we want people crawling out of here” and a graffiti mural is slowly coming together near the entrance, watched by a huddle of skateboarders.

Back to fisting. Joe Wadsack, BBC’s Food and Drink co-host and force of nature, is enthusiastically finishing up his first talk in front of a rapt but small audience. He’s talking about grapes in hot climates and how the grape’s surface can reach such temperatures that the skin caramelizes. Picking them from the vine in the day would be a painful endeavour, so it’s done under cover of darkness. Perhaps to protect the fists, I’m not sure.

If I don’t hear this all that clearly, it’s because I’m in the queue to try some of local lads R&H Wines’ wares, a selection of biodynamic, low sulfite wines. And I’m flanked on all sides by over-zealous – okay, inebriated and loud – punters. We manage to get a taste of the Domaine de la Sénéchalière ‘La Bohème’ (£14), a lively, lingering muscadet that has something of a dry sherry quality about it. The man at the stand claims it’s good enough to be “illegal.” Indeed. 

The poor guy from WineTime at Scatchards, another Liverpool business, is pitched right next to a formidable bank of speakers, wearing a Bluetooth earpiece. He grimaces knowingly and pours us some ‘metal label’ Vermentino (£9.25) that is so deliciously intoxicating it actually manages to drown out the music for a second. Next we head to Albert Dock residents Vinea, where we're taken by pretty much every white on offer, particularly a Torrontes-Riesling blend from Argentina, Amalaya (£9.99), perfumed and fresh, and an Austrian Grüner Veltliner, Federspiel (£12.99), that's crying out for some seafood.

After a glass of Codorníu’s Blanc de Noirs – fancy-ass cava to you and me – it's time for a talk. They're all pleasantly succinct, perfect for an audience who’ve over-indulged on booze. We catch Dan Harwood, a freelance wine educator who has already wooed us with his knowledge at the Vinea stand, speaking about branding and pricing of wine. Describing British wine drinkers as very "price led," he urges us to think about how much we're actually paying for wine. If we're paying a fiver, what's left after the bottle, transport, duty and VAT are taken into account? Clue: it's not a lot. "Always trade up" is Dan's mantra. The other costs involved stay the same, so you're only paying more for wine and inevitably a better product.  

It'd be fair to say, the wine industry is still battling preconceptions; it certainly hasn't seen the kind of transformation that the beer scene has in recent years. But events like this help; apart from chatting to the better wine shop staff out there, this is the most comfortable I've felt discussing wine in a long time.

All this and we've not even graduated to red. We don't quite end up crawling out, but the case of wine we purchase means we stagger.  

If you liked Hip Hop Wine Shop, try: 

Vinea, Liverpool
The Kazimier Garden, Liverpool
Reserve Wines, Manchester