CIRCL Wine House

There are wine bars, and then there’s CIRCL, a place that pushes the boundaries and celebrates the full arc of a sommelier’s devotion.

Tucked on Punch Lane, just near Sunda, CIRCL is a project shaped, curated and fully realised by Xavier Vigier, whose depth of experience shows in every page of the list. After more than a decade in the game, during which he won multiple national awards for his work at Ten Minutes by Tractor, including at Star Wine List of the Year, he’s now poured all of that knowledge, and all of that love, into this space.

One hundred wines by the glass. Yes, you read that right. These are wines with lineage, wines that have been followed for years, even decades, across vintages and moods and shifts in style. Wines he’s stood behind before, and still believes in. Wines that tell a story of place and producer, of palate, of memory, of a career spent obsessing (in the good way). There’s nothing chaotic about it. It’s precise, elegant, and full of personality. The format is brilliant: you sit, you chat, you let yourself be guided, or you take control. Either way, you’ll walk out with more than what you walked in with. One big purpose of CIRCL is to make cult wines accessible by the glass so that they can be shared with more people. We all know the dread of very tiny allocations when it comes to big names! Well, at CIRCL, you can try these icons without having to spend big for a full bottle and, instead, enjoy delving into multiple vintages and vineyards, taste the nuances, and explore the evolution of the wines.

The room is intimate, pared back, considered; everything has purpose. And while the focus is absolutely on the wine, the hospitality is as warm as it is sharp. The team members don’t just know the wines, they feel them. The passion is real, and it’s generous. This isn’t a place for ego. It’s a place for people who love wine, truly, madly, deeply, and want to taste the thread of time through a glass. For a date, a solo deep-dive, or a night with your wine circle, CIRCL is the kind of bar that redefines what it means to drink seriously while having a bloody good time doing it.