It may surprise those outside London to know that Walthamstow has a ‘village’ or in my words, a posh bit with lovely old houses, traditional shops with character and good-quality independent restaurants.
Fortunately, it’s only a ten-minute walk from my house and a friend and I decided to visit the village and “In Vino Veritas”:https://www.parishwines.co.uk/
(name changed to Parish Wines) a wine shop and bar, for a simple, mid-week, pre-Christmas catch-up.
The shop, established by four wine-loving friends in 2015, was beautifully decorated for the festive season with pine cone and ribbon strings hanging down between the wine displays.
Behind the wine shop was a small bar area with around half a dozen round tables and church-style chairs (room for the prayer book on the shelf behind). Small fat red candles were unlit during the day but would be very atmospheric in the evenings. We were told that the piano and double bass provide music on some evenings.
A changing selection of wines are available by the glass and we started with glasses of prosecco (£6 each) whilst perusing the shelves where the wines were divided by country. Each bottle was well labelled with the price and you pay corkage of £5 at lunch or £7.50 in the evening (Wednesday is corkage free and complimentary nibbles are provided on Thursday evenings). This allows you to try wines that would probably be out of range on a restaurant wine list.
We decided to choose something different to our normal Sauvignon Blanc and opted for a New Zealand Hunters Riesling (£14.99) which we were told had a ‘petrol’ smell. Whilst it wouldn’t be a wine I would simply quaff, it was good to try something different and it went very well with our plate of charcuterie and baked Camembert from the simple, but delicious sounding “menu”:https://cdn-asset-stl-1.airsquare.com/invinoveritas/library/ivv-menu-wine-shop-january.pdf?201601122031. .
The charcuterie had a good selection of prosciutto, speck, chorizo and two types of salami (one with fennel) and arrived attractively displayed on a wooden board with a small balsamic-dressed salad and plenty of bread. The Camembert was marinated in citrus, garlic and wine and the lemon flavour really came through. It was also accompanied by bread and water biscuits.
We finished off with coffee and tea and six beautiful mini mince pies with lovely crisp pasty.
We had the place to ourselves and left feeling thoroughly spoiled and relaxed. It is a place to return to.
