Sager + Wilde, Hackney

One bad mistake aside - a winter sun week in Arenal, the boil on beautiful Majorca's backside  - my parents didn't do package holidays. Where my childhood chums were deported to the building sites of the Costas, we were discovering another side to Spain. Drained by the drive from Scotland, my father had stopped off in Zarautz, a small seaside town 20 miles beyond the border with France. Nominally Spanish, the Basque Country - with its impenetrable language. beret-toting hombres, pelotta frontóns, and the added frisson of knowing that a separatist's bomb could go off at any minute - was, and still is, a curious place where 'full English breakfast with a free can of Carling' and GB car number plates are rarer than pink unicorns. Contemplating exuberant, colourful locals en familia in buzzy alfresco bars enjoying pinxtos (as we did not yet know them) as the sun set on surfers riding in on Biscay breakers towards a glorious sweep of golden sands, Dad decided we need not venture further. Zarautz would be a holiday destination we would return to several times after my parents' initial coup de foudre (or whatever the Basque term is). This year, holidaying in the French Basque port of St. Jean de Luz, I revisited Zarautz. Some smart new apartment blocks aside, the old place looks and feels exactly the same - the  children who'd been snacking on pinxtos all those years ago, now grown up with kids of their own, were hanging out in those self same cafes and bars. What has this to do with a new gaff in Hackney? I'll explain. Aged 9, hot chocolate and churros were my Spanish fixes. But  this year, I got to grips with Basque wines - "wersh (i.e. 'acidic' in Scots) gut rot" according to my father. As with Catalonian Cava, production methods have come on in leaps and bounds.I fell in love with ruby rich Alavesa riojas, French Basque Iruléguy, and summery young white, Txakoli. Light, slightly sparkling, with a crisp bite, it's produced in the lush Pyrenean foothills around Zarautz and the neighbouring commune of Guetaria. I was thrilled to find a Bodegas Rezabal Txakoli on a notable list at Sager + Wilde -  a handsome wine bar from a young husband and wife who clearly know their grapes. Tricked out in architectural salvage (Victorian cast iron and glass brick pavement insets as bar counter), all tasteful tonal chic, this is not what you expect to find on an East End strip where 3 for £10 mini-mart muck is the norm. Whether Txakoli is still available a fortnight later, I can't confirm: the offer is revised daily depending on what great bin ends the Sager-Wilde's have tracked down. All wines are available by the glass: from Kentish bubbles, via top drawer riesling and lovely light Loire reds to a Comtes Lafon 2007 Meursault at £15 a pop. Cheese platters, cheese toasties and charcuterie are what to eat at this admirable reboot of a once dodgy boozer. If you're travelling out East and spot Sager + Wilde; remember my old man's words "Why go any further?" 
193 Hackney Road E2 8JL http://www.sagerandwilde.com

Printers & Stationers, Bethnal Green

Don’t be fooled by the name, you'll find no photocopying paper or Pritt sticks for sale here. But if your mouth feels like you just licked a stack of gummed envelopes, there’s plenty to wet your whistle at the bijou bar at this cute wine and food shop set in a converted Victorian workshop off Columbia Road market. Marché aux puces styling, St Germain beatnik soundtrack, dinky city garden and retro packaging on comestibles last seen in a 1950s épicerie somewhere south of Saint Omer are lovely,  but nous sommes ici pour vos vins, Jean-Pierre, innit? A regularly re-stocked selection of reasonably priced goodies, mostly from small independent growers, reflect the owner’s French roots. Pay corkage (£9) on any of the bottles’ retail price tags (there’s plenty to like at around a tenner) or enjoy a limited selection offered by the glass. Sip organic vins de pays, full-bodied Burgundy, a Beajoulais with belles jambes or, perhaps, Cahors with couilles over a plate of charcuterie or cheese with crusty artisan breads. Cidre, bloody Mary, croques and sandwiches complete the Clochemerle vibe. 

21a Ezra Road E2 7RH 7729 9496 www.printersandstationers.co.uk   See web for limited opening times

For more of my reviews go to  www.squaremeal.co.uk

Planet of the Grapes, City

By a fluke of nature, I discover a new City wine cellar. Leaving the launch party at Madison, we're suddenly engulfed in a monsoon that's whipped in from nowhere. Stranded on taxi-free City streets, my date spots a sign for somewhere called Planet of the Grapes. I’m sceptical: sounds like the wine bar equivalent of Curl Up and Dye or Tan-a-Reef. Will there be Blue Nun, Black Tower and pink Lambrini? As the alternative is sodden duds clinging to my contours  - Nigella in her burkini not the look I go for - I'll risk it. And..happy boy am I! Naffissimo name aside, these guys take their vino seriously. The deal? Pick any bottle off well-stocked shelves and pay £10 corkage on top of retail. £18 bags ballsy Chilean Merlot, but trade up and snog big sexy buggers on the cheap. Intense Californian old vines Mourvedre, complex Kiwi Syrahs and pudding-y top notch Tokaji, a hot Hungarian to know. At £35, Olivier Leflaive’s Saint Aubin 1er cru Dents de Chien is les couilles du chien; as classy a white Burgundy as you’ll drink all summer without spending silly money. POTG turns out to be POTG: The Sequel - the original is showing at Leadenhall Market and there's a POTG retail unit in New Oxford Street too (*makes note to reccie*). Understated decor is enlivened by a gallery of ‘dead drunks’ - Hank Williams, Truman Capote, Billie Holiday and what I take to be the little singer from The Monkees. The date corrects me:  It transpires it's Jack Wild (pictured above, as the Artful Dodger) years before he pegged it . The departed boozers are a sobering prospect.  As damage limitation, there's share platters, pork pie, mussels and steaks. Sweet staff comp us a bowl of goose fat chips with aioli and, had it not stopped raining, would’ve proffered umbrellas too, I imagine. 

74-82  Queen Victoria St. EC4 7248 1892 www.planetofthegrapes.co.uk