Places to drink fine wines from the world’s top 250 wine and champagne houses – if you can afford it

This week, London was crowned “wine capital of the world”. It’s worth noting, perhaps, that this shiny new title comes from the annual Knight Frank Wealth Report, and is based on how many restaurants serve fine wines from the world’s top 250 wine and champagne houses. If this is what matters to you when looking at a wine list, this would put London’s wine offering ahead of New York, and even Paris.

Below, the Guardian’s resident wine expert Hannah Crosbie lists a few old and new wine bars that you can walk into and order a bottle anytime. You don’t have to be rich to drink here (but I’m sure it helps).

If you haven’t yet encountered xinomavro, the black grape from northern Greece, it’s time to get acquainted

No wry anecdotes this week, no obscure references or jokes that only I find clever or funny. Today, I’m getting serious about xinomavro. If you haven’t heard of it, allow me to make its introduction, but if I’m already preaching to the choir, why are you still reading? Pour yourself a glass to have with lunch.

Derived from xino (meaning sour) and mavro (black), this is a grape with some serious gravitas. One of hundreds of grape varieties native to Greece, it has become the country’s flagship red, and is now most synonymous with the region of Naoussa in Macedonia, the first Greek wine region to be awarded a PDO (Protected Designation of Origin).