Albertine bids farewell, for now
nowhere like that around,” he says.
“Literally after a week of looking, my
wife found a great premises. It’s a listed
building that I fell in love with. I viewed it
After 44 years of trading, Albertine, the
in the afternoon and by 5pm I’d placed an
iconic London wine shop and bar, has
offer on the table.
closed.
“We did a soft launch in November and
Owners Rob Freddi and Allegra McEvedy
we did lots of work between Christmas and
are hopeful that they will be able to find
New Year and now we are fully open. We’ve
a new home for the business in the near
had such a great response from the locals.
future, but the changing landscape of their
We are mainly retail, but we do offer wine
local area has proved to be one challenge
by the glass as well.”
too many.
“Since Christmas we had started to get
very busy evenings again,” explains Freddi. “The reality, however, is that the area
around Wood Lane has radically changed since March 2020. We had lost our
historical customer base when people
started working from home, or returned to the office for only a couple of days a week. “The broadcasting corporations around
us [including the BBC and Loftus Media] that had been giving us excellent lunch
trade, private room hires, filming, events over the year, were no longer a reliable source of business for us.
“It became evident last autumn that
waiting for that kind of trade to return
would have been a romantic, unrealistic idea.”
Freddi admits that while local Shepherds
Bush residents remained loyal and
supportive, they just weren’t contributing
the level of trade needed to grow or sustain the business.
“We took the hard decision to call it a day
Sarah Hobday of Vin Van Cymru BBC’s Wood Lane departure hurt Albertine
Norwich indie HarperWells has plans before getting into financial troubles,” he
for its first on-trade location to open
Mad Wine, an import company which has
style cheese carousel, which will allow
wines from small family domains. He will
glass. The focus will be on the cheese
says.
before the end of the year.
been “feeding” Albertine’s wine list with
for several covers, and there will be a
A couple of years ago Freddi set up La
exclusive imports of French and Italian
now focus on expanding the portfolio while working with the team on finding a new site for Albertine.
Hythe indie has Italian specialism Alessandro Allegretti has opened Hythe Cellar on the Kent coast. This is the third shop for Allegretti, who
The project will comprise a Yo Sushi-
minimum of 20 wines available by the
and wine pairings and there will also be
a retail element to the new site, which is earmarked for Norwich city centre.
The plan is to trade under the Fredricks
name, reflecting the branding of the company’s deli in Diss.
Second store for Ultracomida
owns two enotecas, Bon Vino Dockhead
Ultracomida is set to open a new site in
shops, Hythe Cellar will specialise in Italian
our wine warehouse that we opened in
summer and spotted a gap in the market
storage space on one side of the building,
(in Bermondsey) and Bon Vino Maltby
Cardiff this summer.
wine, all of which he imports directly.
Aberystwyth last year,” explains owner
Street (in Southwark). As with those two
Allegretti says he moved to the area last
for a good wine merchant. “The only thing Rob Freddi
HarperWells to open Norwich bar
I want to do on a Saturday morning is to go
and have a cup of coffee, buy a loaf of bread and a nice bottle of wine, and there was
THE WINE MERCHANT may 2022 4
“It’s very much along the same lines as
Shumana Palit. “We’ll have warehouse
with the wines and food offering on the
other side. This is slightly bigger and will
have a mezzanine space where it will look and feel like a bar.”
