Vinopolis

Vinopolis offers self guided tours, letting you experience wine from all over the world. There’s also the opportunity to try Absinthe, Jagermeister, a specially prepared Bombay Sapphire cocktail and a variety of whiskeys and beers. If you’re sensible enough you can have a 20 minute wine tasting lesson too.

The amount of alcohol you’re allowed depends on how much money you’re willing to spend on a tour ticket. There’s the ‘Classic’ for £15, the ‘Explorer’ for £20 and the ‘Connoisseur’ for £25. We decided to try out the Explorer.

On arriving you get given a map, (which looks nothing like the inside - the inside is a maze), a series of wine tasting vouchers and a tick list for the other alcohol on offer. Ten minutes after arriving, my friend lost her alcoholic tick list - I was not about to share my list with her, so we had a hunt round and not only one, but two. All the more alcohol for us. No complaints yet.

The start of the tour is very much like a museum, which, lets be honest is not the reason people come here, so we did the obvious thing and skipped the educational bit. After trying a few wines from France and Italy (I do not advice Portuguese wine, it’s foul), we decided it was time for our Bombay Sapphire cocktail, which was the best drink all night.

After some Champagne and a handful of crackers, it was time for a lesson in wine tasting. We were taught about the “legs of wine” and how to circulate air around the wine in your mouth - all to improve the quality and taste. It didn’t really do anything for me to be honest. Maybe I was too drunk?

Paying £3 extra meant we could take part in the ‘Blind Wine Challenge’ - no blindfolds sadly, just covered wine bottles. After five different wines later and not a hope in hell of completing the challenge, we went to take advantage of the Absinthe. Unfortunately the Absinthe was watered down, tasting a lot like mouthwash. However, the Jagermeister was pure Jagermeister, and I can safely say it looked disgusting and tasted disgusting - I would drink Absinthe over Jagermeister any day.

The worst drink of the night was yet to come though. Whisky. They were very proud of their new ‘Still Room’ at Vinopolis - they shouldn’t be. The whisky smelt like a “turd covered in burnt hair” and tasted even worse. I completely blame the whisky for my hangover the following day (the Jagermeister probably contributed too).

Lastly, we finished the tour in the Vinopolis Brewery to claim our free beers. They were a variety of flavours apparently (beer tastes like beer to me), but anything was better than the whisky taste. We then stayed there for an expensive round of drinks, some free chips and a toilet stop. Then we ran off to Soho.

Overall, it was a good night, but not really worth the £23 we spent. More expensive than staying in with alcohol from a supermarket, but cheaper than a night out in London. Vinopolis wouldn’t do well in Leeds, it’s not cheap enough. It wasn’t aimed at students either, but I’d recommend it for a big group and for something a little different to do. It’s also wise to go on an empty stomach, or not if you don’t want to get drunk.