What you can see and do at the Wine Society in Stevenage

 

The Wine Cellar at The Wine Society. Photo by Angela Lansbury.

The wine society is about wîne but there is lots to entertain and impress those who are not wine drinkers or don’t know much about wine.

So it is a good place to stop for a break on your way out of London going north or back on your way from Cambridge. 

1 I am always entranced by the spiral staircase under circular glass leading down to the wine cellar.

2 Another novelty is what you can do with cork or imitation cork. Make a stool.

Corks at The Wine Society. Photo by Angela Lansbury. Copyright.

3 You can take them your old corks for recycling. The donated corks are sent to Portugal.

What's free or cheap?

At the door on Wed 29th October 2025 we were offered a tasting of two Greek wines. 

The Enomatic Machine

Except on special occasions, the enomatic machine is free offering you a teeny taste of several wine which they are promoting. 

Enomatic, which I have previously thought of as a generic name is actually a brand name, so it must have a capital letter for a proper name, and not be used for any device other than their own branded product. Eno is related to the name for wine, and matic as in automatic, a wine dispenser, operated by a card. In shops and restaurants or restaurant-bars such as machine is operated by a card which you buy. Like a train card, you can add amounts of money to the card, and keep using it until the money runs out, then top it up. 

The Wine Society has a well organized double room or shelving. You can look for a country. Or a style of wine such as Spritis or Sweet Wine, Red, white. Also beer. Low and no alcohol.

If you are not a drinker, or are driving and want to taste and spit, or sober up, or entertain a non drinking passenger, there are coffee dispensers which have drinking chocolate as well as fresh milk in a minifridge. Also water. And toilets. 

What to buy for yourself or non drinking friends to eat, or just general gifts? And chocolates. Seasonal items, for Christmas, when we were there. Boar pate. Duck pate. Olives. Crisps and nuts. The selection changes all the time.

They also have ends of stocks at reduced prices. And mixed cases of six bottles with damaged labels for about a hundred pounds or more. The tops of the boxes were open so we were able to look in and see what was there. You might not want to serve a bottle with a damaged label for a festive occasion, or in a restaurant to a VIP customer. But for yourself, or a friend who likes a bargain, that is an option. 

Useful Websites

https://www.thewinesociety.com/

Tea time or Tipple time? Enomatic Drinks Tasting At The Tanglin Club in Singapore, and in England

The Tanglin Club
The Tanglin Club is a pleasant place to relax. Perfect for chit-chatting and relaxing with friends and family. Not ideal for a business meeting because they ban phones except on the front deck.

Tanglin Club Lounge. Photo by Angela Lansbury. Copyright.

However, great for get-away-from-it-all personal chats. The lounge with a couple of tables overlooking the outside pool area, is pleasant place to retire for coffee after lunch in the Tavern (the British style imitation pub) alongside. Glass cabinets display pastries. On top sits tiers of scones and muffins.

After lunch with a friend, I wonder about coffee or juice. She, however, likes a glass of wine.

What about drinks.
If you don't want as much as a glass, just a taster of wine, the Enomatic machine offers various bottles. (In most places in the UK, such as the Wine Society HQ in Stevenage, they change at least one bottle monthly, sometimes weekly, so there's always something new to come back to try.

The system is, you get an Enomatic card, add value to it, then select the drink or drinks you want to try by inserting the card into the slot by your chosen bottle, and deciding on the smaller or larger glass offered.

What is the point of the dispenser? The point is not just to save on staff and speed up service by offering self-service. It enables you to buy drinks in smaller quantities, and try several drinks. You can see the bottle close up. You can buy tiny amounts of expensive drinks, when you could never afford to buy a bottle, or could not finish a bottle.

You can get to know a lot of wines. Especially if you attend the venue often, are on a mailing list, or get together with friends or family to have a sip of this and a sip of that.

Many restaurants and bars offer only two or three wines by the glass, often just one red and one white. The machine ensures you have a wider choice.

Is it good value?
That depends. I thought the white Gewurztraminer on the far left of the machine in early March 2019 was a good buy.

My husband thought another wine was poor value, because he could buy a whole bottle in a supermarket for less than the cost of two or three tasters.

So long as you find one wine which is good value for you, then it is good value for you.

Useful Websites

Tanglin Club with Enomatic in Singapore

https://www.tanglinclub.org.sg/

Fulham Wine Rooms with Enomatic in London, England.

http://travelwithangelalansbury.blogspot.com/2017/11/fulham-wine-rooms-for-dinner-wine.html

The Old Bridge Hotel with enomatic in shop, England

https://travelwithangelalansbury.blogspot.com/2017/09/wine-buying-and-tasting-in-england.html

The Wine Society, Stevenage, England

http://travelwithangelalansbury.blogspot.com/2015/06/wine-society-spiral-cellar-to-see.html

Singaporeair.com

visitsingapore.com

visitbritain.com

visitbritainshop.com

Author

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.

Fulham Wine Rooms for dinner, wine tasting, clubs, Christmas wine tasting

Enter a large room with a bar at the left and Enomatic machines for choosing tastes of wine on the right.

Here's a menu. Notice the symbol of the wine glass at the top.

Here's the wine glass symbol on the window.

Plenty to look at.

Lots of food and drinks.

Interesting pictures and wine bottles everywhere.

Candles and water in heavy bottles.

Ah - the food. Poultry breast and potatoes, my favourite. Red cabbage - makes a change. Plus a nice sprig of green.

Ah - thick cut chips. With the skins on - that'a modern idea. Quicker for the cook. Probably healthier, too.

A third dish. A third wine. White or red.

Wine class on wines for Christmas. £30 per person.

The back room for a private wine party. One of the wine groups I belong to had a tasting here.

Our club wine tasting before we ate in the restaurant. Ah, yes, I can see the difference in the colours!

Another room for dining, to the right.

A private room you can hire for Christmas parties at the back.

A steep flight of stairs down to a spacious cloakroom.

Pricey food but good food. Choices included poultry breast (my choice). Good thick chips with skin on them.
 Wines by the glass - lots of choice, plus the Enomatic machines.

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer
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Wine Society Wine Tastings

Christmas trees outside provided a welcome and a free taste of c r e m a n t (sorry, auto correct tried to convert this to creamed. C r e m a n t is a sparkling white wine, not allowed to be called Champagne which is a French place name, and protected). This event was held n Stevenage but go to their website and you'll see they have paid for events all over Britain, sometimes in Europe, which despite the price are often sold out before I get to read the website. Luckily a member of my family is a member and takes me along, and gets news of events like the pre-Christmas tasting which is really hard to find on the website.

The Wine Society is a mutual society, a bit like the Co-op. It costs about £40 to join, and you get £20 back to spend on wines. Once or twice a year they have a free tasting of 10-20 of their wines. The Christmas tasting was free. If you can drive to Stevenage - or visit a friend or stay in a hotel overnight, it's a lot of fun. Some people drive all the way from the south coast of England or down from the Midlands.

A lot of people live in London and zoom up the motorway and back. One person has to be at the designated driver who knows how to taste and spit into a spittoon. If you are not drinking at all, or even if you are, the foods appear within an hour of the start of the tasting. It was from 4 pm to 6 pm, so not for those who work, unless you take time off work, hence a lot of white haired couples, plus a lot of young couples and solo beards.

The Christmas special foods are not on sale other times of year so it's a treat to try them and a chance to buy them. Everyone has different tastes. Others were enthusing about the pates, venison, rabbit, boar. (I'm a chicken liver pate person and none of the pates appealed to me.) But I was impressed by the cheddar cheese, and the honeycomb in chocolate, and the chocolates.

I loved the huge salted almonds. I've never seen such large almonds. The ones in supermarkets the world over are much smaller.

You can buy lots of novelties as gifts. Plum pudding (Christmas pudding), sticky toffee pudding, parkins (a northern biscuit - more details and recipes in Wikipedia and on other websites), tins.

Plus the expected wine glasses, bottle openers and novelties. Our purchase was the balls for cleaning the inside of a decanter or a wine bottle or plastic bottle you use for carrying small amounts of wine. (How does it work? You roll the balls about then empty them out.)

The Stevenage shop and tasting room has two Enomatic machines. The free tasting section is turned off during the free tastings. You don't need it since you are trying the half dozen or dozen wines they are offering and have in stock.

You can still use the paid for machine. The price for the teeny tastes is less than similar machines in shops in central London. The Wine Society has bin ends in a separate room of more expensive and unusual wines. But the vast majority in the main room start from bargain hunter or average person friendly prices.

For example, you might try a taste of a wine from the machine, at just 45p. Contrast that with a shop in Kensington, London, where you might pay £30 for a tasting of a wine costing hundreds of pounds which you would never otherwise get to taste. (I had a sip of one of those very expensive wines from somebody else's glass in central London, and it was wasted on me. The Wine Society is just right for me.)

Whilst I was there, I looked at some of the special sections. One was on English wine and rosé wine. The English wine I noticed was Three Choirs. Many people in Europe are surprised that England has even one vineyard or commercially produced wine.

The staff are all very helpful and knowledgeable. You can ask them anything you like. (Not, 'Are you married or single?'!) You can ask: 'Which food goes with this wine?')

More details from:
Thewinesociety.com

Photos by Angela Lansbury, copyright 2016.
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.
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