As we edge closer to harvest, vignerons are watching the sky and crossing their fingers in the hope that their grapes get the gentle warmth they need to ripen fully. It's an anxious time: too much rain and the grapes will be diluted or rot; too much sun and they risk burning; a spell of hail could break their skins and ruin an entire crop.

They'll continue to walk this tightrope until their grapes are safely in their cellars, so it's only fair that, as wine lovers, we should pause to think about how their wines taste once they hit our shelves.

While the concept of tasting wine (as opposed to simply drinking it) has been commonplace for centuries, there were very few books about wine until the 19th century, and wine knowledge was scant apart from among a fortunate elite who had caught the wine bug and had money, many of them British.

André Jullien's pioneering catalogue of vineyards, Topographie de tous les Vignobles Connus from 1816, was one of the first stepping stones towards demystifying the world of wine, followed in 1952 by Galet’s Ampelography, the first published guide to grape varieties. When British merchant in Paris Stephen Spurrier organised the pivotal Judgement of Paris blind tasting in 1976, it was a watershed moment for wine tasting and the results made history. France’s monopoly on fine wine toppled and California proved unequivocally that it had what it takes to rival the best of France, and for less money too.

Wine tasting had entered the public consciousness and as people travelled abroad more regularly, and the standard of living improved, visiting wineries and putting a bottle of wine on the dinner table became a part of life for ordinary Brits like never before.

We hosted our first tasting in Greenwich 22 years ago; not to pit one wine against another, but to simply demonstrate why we believe our bottles deserve to be discussed while they're being poured.

Since then, wine tasting has become a national sport that has fuelled the expansion of the independent wine trade, and a plethora of small independent wine bars, many offering a tasting element as part of their menu.

We open 6-8 wines on the given theme, provide tasting sheets and a pen in case you’d like to take notes, and most of the wines are paired with some cheese and charcuterie.

They’re as informative as they are relaxed and fun, and while we can only offer backdrops of our bustling shelves and inner-London streets, we're confident that the bottles we open help transport you to where they're from, at least for a couple of hours on a Thursday evening.

We do hope you can join us soon.