Handford Wines

Rushed into their shop last week on my way to dinner with an old friend from the US. They were being kind of enough to cook dinner for me so I wanted to bring a bottle of sparkling wine. The gentleman who worked the shop grabbed something from the cooler, gave me a brief description and said it was great. DONE....and off I went !!!

Great selection of wines that are affordable to everyone's wallet. Their staff member, Nial, was very knowledgeable of their wine collection and was kind of enough to sample one of their wine.

For me is the best place to buy wine in South Kensington!!

The staff is is very helpful, knowledgeable and guides you through the choices with a very friendly approach.

They have an excellent and varied tastings events, with an interesting wine club subscription.

On top of that is one of the few wine shop were I had my wines recommended by a Master of Wine.

They have 2 Masters of Wine working here!! Which is very impresive an remarkable for a relatively small or cousy wine shop.

There are 369 MWs in the world, living in 29 countries. Very impressive and recommended.

Very disappointing service, the guy was busy stocking up the shelves and had ZERO will to help me (and I was the only customer in this little shop..) None of the two „assistants” show any passion for wine and I was the only one asking questions - not once they checked what I was looking for and always answered my questions very short (maybe they just don’t know what they’re selling? that would explain..) I kind of regret buying from them. I hope the wine is decent though! I bought Kisler and Pingus, let’s see..

Excellent upmarket wine shop with a range across all countries. It has an especially good South African section, with top wines you can't find elsewhere in London, but the prices are quite high.

Incredibly rude service
I stopped into this shop the afternoon of the 10 Oct to pick up a bottle of chilled wine, possibly champagne, to take to a dinner party nearby. I walked over to the chilled section, but paused because it seemed to be positioned next to and somewhat behind the counter. I asked a woman standing behind the counter if I might take a look at the fridge. She scoffed and said, "What are you going to do? Climb it?" I'm usually pretty hard to offend, but this comment was so rude and so uncalled-for that I said, "nevermind" and walked straight out of the shop. It's a shame because I had been excited to support an independent shop - I sought out Handford's for this particular reason. But after this encounter, which was so unpleasant it actually left me shaken, I went to Waitrose next door, where I got a nice bottle of champagne and pleasant service. I told everyone at the dinner party what had happened, and they were shocked and said they would avoid Handford's in future.

Such incredible knowledge, excellent wines and so so helpful.

Efficient, honest and expert service!! James is a delightful man to deal with! Always flexible and able to make great suggestions and create wonderful wine selection to suit any occasion!
Highly recommend!!!