Wine's very own golden Arches

This review was first published in May 2001

It's that man again. And that woman. The wine world is a small place; you get used to seeing the same faces on the tasting circuit. I had no idea, though, who this striking couple were. He had the kind of fleshy presence which, you feel, must act like a magnet on bottles of wine, lifting their corks without the intermediary of a screw; she was bright-eyed, evidently European, darkly elegant. They stood out amid the zebra-herd of striped suits and the public-school gull cries.

They obviously loved tasting. Whenever serious wines were in town, they were there. And I mean tasting, rather than standing around chattering. Who were they? If they were wine traders, I would have known them. Restaurateurs, maybe? But restaurateurs just aren't that interested in wine, and don't give up large chunks of their working day to research their wine lists.

Back in March, I was in Bordeaux tasting the 2000 samples - and there he was again, without his consort this time, ploughing his way around a room of 30 St Emilions. Curiosity, I decided, could wait no longer. I introduced myself, through wine-blackened teeth. He handed me his card. "Harry Gill," it said, "The Arches Wine Bar, 7 Fairhazel Gardens NW6." A wine-bar owner who pays for himself to go to Bordeaux for a week to taste wines which won't be ready to drink for 10 years? Here's something unusual.

And so, I discovered last week, is The Arches. Harry Gill told me it was in West Hampstead, though Swiss Cottage turned out to be much closer. There are no arches in sight; the name is a reference to a lost wine bar underneath Charing Cross of which this, obscurely, is the modern-day avatar. Gill is your real up-and-down, 24-carat, let's-get-the-cork-out enthusiast.

He was just finishing a bottle of Versino's deliciously fiery '98 Châteauneuf du Pape when I arrived on Monday night, and looked very much like his own best customer. The darkly elegant woman turned out to be Croatian Ivana Marevic, the bar manager and Gill's girlfriend. They run the place, which will soon celebrate its 10th birthday, with the help of two charming and sweet-tempered Moroccan chefs and various Polish bar and waiting staff. It has a friendly, neighbourhood feel, albeit one that could be anywhere in central Europe.

Until Harry Gill gets chatting, that is: he's a true Londoner who could hold his own on any Walworth market stall. His dramatic conversion to great wine came via a case of Margaux '85.

"I was talking to these wine suppliers I had - Maison Caurette. They told me they had some Margaux '85 and they were bin-ending it at £600. 'You what?' I said. 'Bin ending it at £600?' I thought it was a joke. But after a bit I said, 'Sod it. Send me a case. Let's see how good it is.' I got it open. I sniffed it." Dramatic pause; the weighty Gill nose is lowered into the glass. He looks up. "It blew me away." He's now become a collector of wine and has managed to get hold of Pétrus, Le Pin, you name it: all the crown jewels.

I've tried a few of the inexpensive wines in The Arches, and they are fair but not outstanding (the white Cotes de Gascogne from Jacques Veritier at £9.95 is better and more grown-up than most of its rivals). My advice, though, is to spend between £15 and £30 here, since, with Gill's modest mark-ups and keen palate, you'll generally get something very good. You might have to ask what's on offer, though: despite owning hundreds of thousands of pounds' worth of wine, Gill hasn't got round to buying himself a computer, and they're waiting for a friendly wine merchant to reprint their everchanging list.

During the course of two visits last week I tried a number of wines, including a brisk, declassified Nuits sold as 1997 Bourgogne from barrique-maniac Dominique Laurent (£24), the suprisingly lush '92 Tertre-Rote-boeuf (£48), that spicy '98 Versino Châteauneuf (£24), the super-ripe '96 Alma Viva from the Mouton-Rothschild team in Chile (£70) and, best of all, a glycerous and perfumed 1990 Blagny Sous de Dos d'Ane from Leflaive (£40) though, sadly, it was almost the last bottle. There's both a snack menu and a restaurant menu, serving more thoughtfully prepared dishes than the wine-bar norm; best of those we tried was a generous lamb tagine.

The place is packed with what Gill calls antiques and Marevic calls "Harry's junk" - violins, puppets, pikestaffs. A war-hero squadron leader turned psychic palmist called Richard Leven used to come to the Arches to drink port; he's dead now, but they still have his hat, bow tie and business plaque. The place is open from 11 until 11, seven days a week, 364 days a year. It's even open for friends on Christmas Day at lunchtime, after which Gill cooks lunch for his staff downstairs. And now I know who that man is.

Wine list scores 4 out of 5.

The Arches Bar
7 Fairhazel Gardens, NW6 3QE