Late wine bars, listening rooms and evening tastings in Sussex.
Late wine bars, listening rooms, fortified specialists and evening tastings across Sussex.
A natural wine and cocktail bar in the South Lanes that keeps pouring after the kitchen closes, with the last seating at 21:30 and the bar running to midnight at the weekend.
The list: Natural, organic and biodynamic list with more than twenty wines by the glass, served alongside small plates until 22:00.
The Hove room that stays open latest without turning into a cocktail bar: wine, charcuterie and a bottle shop from 10am to midnight Tuesday to Saturday.
The list: Wine and charcuterie room off Western Road with a shop attached, open from mid morning through to midnight six days a week.
Fire cooked small plates on Middle Street with the latest licence of any wine focused room in the Lanes, running to 1am from Thursday through Saturday.
The list: Curated list spanning classics and less familiar bottles across a broad price range, with staff pairing it to the fire cooked small plates.
A Victoria Grove neighbourhood bar with an east facing terrace, live music and an Argentinian small plates kitchen, open to midnight at the weekend.
The list: Neighbourhood list built from lighter styles through to full bodied, with a two glass deal that leaves you the rest of the bottle Wednesday to Friday 4pm to 7pm.
An aperitivo room on St Georges Place pouring sparkling red Lambrusco until 11.30pm, which is not a style anywhere else in Brighton builds a list around.
The list: Small hand picked Italian list with Lambrusco at the centre of it, poured with focaccia and sharing plates.
A French bistro at the top of Trafalgar Street that turns into a low intervention wine room on Thursday, Friday and Saturday evenings.
The list: Low intervention wines from organic growing, listed by what the vinification did rather than by country.
A Clyde Road cafe that doubles as a bottle shop and pours keg wine, rotating the tap every quarter. Open until 10pm from Tuesday through Saturday.
The list: Natural, organic, biodynamic and skin contact bottles plus a rotating wine on tap, with the whole list also sold to take away.
A French leaning small plates room on Lindfield High Street, open to 11pm Wednesday to Saturday, and the only late wine list of note between Haywards Heath and the Ashdown Forest.
The list: List sourced from Butler's Wine Cellar in Brighton with nearly everything available by the glass, running from Sussex sparkling to French reds.
Church Road room where the list runs to a vinyl DJ soundtrack, open to midnight on Friday and Saturday and from five o'clock the rest of the week.
The list: Organic, natural and low intervention bottles chosen by co-owner Maddy Riches, with chilled reds, skin contact orange wines and sparkling alongside classics.
An all day bar and cafe on East Street with resident DJs playing vinyl on Thursday evenings and a wine list built almost entirely on organic and low intervention growers.
The list: Wines grown with biodiversity in mind, most of them organic and many natural or made with minimal intervention, poured in 175ml glasses or by the bottle.
The bistro of the Gothic hotel a street back from the seafront, where all 49 guest rooms are named after wine producers and the list runs past 600 bottles.
The list: More than 600 bottles including English sparkling, plus a wine locker service for buying and storing bottles near cost.
Wine bar, restaurant and off licence on Church Road, and the one Sussex room that keeps a standing sherry list alongside its small independent European growers.
The list: An ever changing list of wines, sherries and cocktails, many by the glass, picked off the shelf at individually marked bottle prices.
A Jubilee Street wine shop that pours what it sells and runs evening tasting masterclasses, which is the easiest structured tasting to get into in Brighton.
The list: Shop and bar list poured by the glass, with evening masterclasses run around a theme or a region.
The Brighton room that puts Sussex sparkling and still wine at the top of the list rather than in a corner of it, on Norfolk Square off Western Road.
The list: English wine led list with Sussex producers at the front of it, poured by the glass in a small Norfolk Square room.
Peak wine-travel season in Sussex is spring through autumn, with harvest the standout window.
classified-growth and grand-cru estates require booking days to weeks ahead; smaller family domaines often take walk-ins midweek.
most estates open 10:00 to 17:00 by appointment, often closed Sunday and Monday.
tipping is not expected at tastings; buying a bottle from the cellar door is the customary thank-you.
Ask the next local you meet what they would order. Sussex rewards trust.