Cellar Dinners at Berry Bros. & Rudd, September 2026
Four dinners in the cellars and townhouse rooms at 3 St James's Street through September 2026 — rare bottles, a Pol Roger release, a charity auction and the 1996 Bordeaux vintage.
Berry Bros. & Rudd was founded in 1698 and is Britain’s oldest wine and spirits merchant, still family-owned and still trading from 3 St James’s Street. The rooms below and above the shop — the Napoleon and Sussex cellars, the Townhouse dining room — are where it puts on the dinners it does not advertise as tastings. The distinction matters: a tutored tasting is a class, and these are dinners.
September gives four of them, and they divide neatly. Two are about a single subject held still — the 2019 Pol Roger release, and eight 1996 clarets thirty years on. One is about rarity for its own sake, the Unicorn dinner, where the line-up is drawn from the cellar rather than from a theme. The fourth is the charity night, an auction for motor neurone disease research run for one of the shop’s own.
All four start at half past six and run to half past ten, all are smart casual, and all are bought directly from the merchant.
The Unicorn Bottle Dinner
Townhouse, Berry Bros. & Rudd · St James's
The one night of the four given over to bottles the merchant describes as elusive, drawn out of its own cellar and served at maturity.
The apéritif is Cédric Bouchard, a grower Champagne made in runs of about fifteen thousand bottles a year; then the Sancerre of Edmond & Anne Vatan from a single hectare in Chavignol's Monts Damnés, and two Burgundies after it — Arnaud Ente's Puligny-Montrachet and Clos des Lambrays. Half past six until half past ten, £895.
Pol Roger 2019 Vintage Release Dinner
Sussex Cellar, Berry Bros. & Rudd · St James's 17 September
A house dinner marking the release of the 2019 Pol Roger vintage, poured across several cuvées and stages of maturity rather than as a single pour.
Pol Roger was founded in 1849 and its long association with Churchill runs through this shop's own ledgers — he was a Berry Bros. & Rudd customer. It opens on a glass of Brut Réserve. Half past six until half past ten in the Sussex Cellar, £295.
MND Auction Dinner
Napoleon Cellar, Berry Bros. & Rudd · St James's 22 September
An evening auction in the Napoleon Cellar in support of the My Name'5 Doddie Foundation, with every penny of the ticket price going to the charity.
It was started for a colleague of the shop's, Davy Żyw, and the format is a five-course dinner from the in-house kitchen poured against a flight drawn from the Berry Bros. & Rudd family reserves and from producers who donated to it. Half past six until half past ten, £1,700.
1996 Vintage Bordeaux Dinner
Townhouse, Berry Bros. & Rudd · St James's 25 September
One vintage, eight wines, thirty years on: Montrose, Pontet-Canet, Grand-Puy-Lacoste, Léoville Las Cases, Palmer, Latour and Lafite Rothschild, all 1996 and all classed growths.
A Leclerc Briant rosé opens it. This is the format the cellar does best, since the only variable left is the estate. Half past six until half past ten in the Townhouse, £595.