Celebrating the greats: London Cru winery and their top English wines

As part of our ongoing 25th anniversary celebrations throughout 2025, we’re shining our spotlight on some of the winemakers we enjoy collaborating with the most, including people we’ve known for decades as well as more recent discoveries we can’t get enough of. London Cru winery is a fine example of the latter.

London Cru is the UK’s first urban winery, established in 2013. Based in Fulham in southwest London, winemaker Alex Hurley and his talented team harvest their grapes in West Sussex and transport them into their city location, where the fermentation tanks and barrels are kept, to work their magic.

The winery is in an old Victorian warehouse, which was once a gin distillery, surrounded by centuries of history. Yet, London Cru leans into the buzz and innovation of modern city living with its state-of-the-art facilities. Here you’ll find temperature-controlled stainless steel tanks and modern concrete eggs for aging wine, as well as the traditional French oak barrels.

Winemaker Alex Hurley, who started his winemaking career in Australia and studied viticulture in France and Italy, brings a huge amount of experience and adventurous spirit to this winery in the heart of London.

Alongside his ambition to produce quality wine, we also admire Alex’s passion for making wine and wine education super accessible. The winery is easy to get to, and Alex encourages visitors by hosting regular tastings and events where people can learn about winemaking. This ethos about sharing great wine and knowledge with fellow wine lovers is something we truly believe in at Virgin Wines, too.

London Cru founder Cliff Roberson and the entire team take pride in specialising in still wines made from grapes such as Pinot Noir, Pinot Gris and Bacchus. In recent years, English winemaking has been hitting the headlines for its sparkling wine production thanks to similarities we share with the Champagne region, so a UK based winery that’s focussing on still wine feels fresh and exciting.

Perhaps the most celebrated wine in the London Cru range is their magnificent Pinot Noir. This is a grape that can be notoriously difficult to nurture as it’s extremely fussy and delicate compared to other red grape varieties, so to find a Pinot Noir that’s been crafted as impressively as this is a real treat.

While planning our series of anniversary wines to release this year, we had our eye on London Cru’s star red wine for obvious reasons. Sophie Lord, our Head of Buying, hatched a plan with London Cru’s Alex to take inspiration from this wine and create something extra special – a Pinot Noir Précoce, which is an elegant, early ripening, lesser-known version of Pinot Noir.

From their reputation for specialising in such high quality still wines to the fact they were the UK’s first urban winery, it’s clear to see why we consider London Cru to be one of the greats – and an obvious choice for partnering with on a special anniversary wine. Thank you to everyone at London Cru for being fantastic partners in wine!

Virgin Wines is 25 years young

Throughout 2025, we’ll be celebrating our silver anniversary year in style. From spring to winter, there’ll be lots of silver anniversary surprises including juicy offers, fun-filled events and experiences and, of course, plenty more brand-new, limited-edition wines that have been created for our celebrations by our favourite winemakers.

So, keep an eye on our website, your emails and our social channels for announcements and ways to join the party.