Welcome to HG Wines
HG Wines was set up in 1999 by Trevor Gulliver, originally to source wines for the St. JOHN restaurant in Smithfield, direct from the vigneron. This echoed the principles of the restaurant where we would source ingredients directly and bake our bread every day, do our own butchery. At that time restaurants were at the behest of the merchants, some old fashioned, staid, some just commercial. A lot of good wine would not leave France (St. JOHN has an all french list, you’ll find this much argued in various wine blogs, which Trevor is always happy to discuss!) but plenty of boring stuff did, sometimes under the wrong label and often knowingly.
St. JOHN these days has spread its wings from Smithfield slowly to Bread and Wine in Spitalfields, the new St. JOHN hotel and restaurant in Chinatown and now the newly commissioned bakery in Druid street near Borough market. HG’s (which stands for Henderson Gulliver) these days has a much bigger turnover, supplying our own needs, our private clients and other like minded restaurants. We purchase in large numbers of pallets, as with our house claret and the St. JOHN blanc de blancs champagne, right down to small numbers of cases.
We still maintain our somewhat evangelical stance on wine, it is the grower, the vine and the terroir that come first, not logistics or price points. We enjoy being a vitrine for our growers, a shop window. You’ll regularly see them being picked up by other UK merchants once they have appeared on our lists. We are happy about this as long as we get the best price and our orders! We still hold our annual vignerons party, where our happy bunch of folk come over and don’t get to bed until late joined by the odd journalist and customer. They are an eclectic bunch; short, tall, old, young, mad, ex accountants, troubadours, philosophers, highly qualified, unschooled, glamorous... er, rustic, may or may not be biodynamic, organic, sustainable, natural... and great people. We will still buy that small parcel as we once did, why 87 bottles? well, it was because it was all he had.
Own label St. JOHN wines.
Where we can, we enjoy being a part of the process, working with the winemaker to create the wine. Staff across St. JOHN often come on our buying trips, these elements improve what we do and make it more fun and rewarding for all of us. We have our own restaurant way and it is as natural to us, as indeed it is for the Berry Bros wine department, to want to blend our own Claret for example. This also applies to our country wines at lower prices. Trevor says that almost invariably these are better value than the "house" wines sold by merchants to restaurants under a label to suit. A lower price does not have to mean "inoffensive"... and, of course, it is a pleasure and a treat to do the annual Champagne tastings! You’ll find information on all the wines in the listings.
How to buy our wines
The wines listed at our Smithfield and Spitalfields restaurants are available to buy at a take away price over the bar as single bottles. The prices on this website are for purchases of 12 plus bottles or a spend of over £200. Delivery charges vary but rarely exceed £10 and if you live in central London delivery is free.
We are able to put together mixed cases and are more than happy to offer advice on how to tailor your selection to your specific tastes.
Wine sourcing Service
Between us, we are lucky to have a great array of contacts in the wine industry. If there is a particular wine you would like us to find for you please click on the contact link on the menu bar and we will do our best to help.
News & Events
There is also a blog in the news section where we will endevour to keep you up to date on our findings, musings and vinous adventures...
Winemakers
The winemakers function on the main menu can be used to find out more on a particular producer, as well as a map locator so that you can see exactly where they are situated. You can also use these pages to view all the wines that we sell from that particular winemaker.