34 Degrees, No Power, 120 Guests: Inside a Rooftop Wine Tasting Above London
How do you keep champagne cold on a rooftop with no power, in a heatwave, for 120 people? Carefully. And with a lot of ice.
We took on a wine tasting and pairing event back in June for a corporate client. Six wine stations, a sommelier on each one, canapés matched course by course, all set against a rooftop view of London. On paper, it’s the kind of booking that sells itself. In practice, it’s the kind of booking that tests you.
The brief
The concept was simple: six stations, six canapé pairings. Each station needed to feel like its own moment while still working as part of a whole night. Coordinating sommeliers, timing, and food across a rooftop with no electricity and a kitchen the size of a cupboard. The best type of challenge.
The bit nobody sees
It hit 34 degrees that day. Not the weather you’d choose for keeping wine cold, and definitely not the weather you’d choose for a team working flat out with no power supply.
Here’s the thing about heat and hospitality: the guests only ever see the finished glass. They don’t see the 30kg of ice we brought in just to keep bottles at the right temperature, topped up all evening. They don’t see a small team trying to stay hydrated themselves while making sure everyone else is looked after first, keeping the cold canapés cold, the hot canapés hot and making sure that all of the right dietaries go to the right guests as they are all moving around. That’s the job, predicting and solving the problems before anyone notices.
Some of what we served
Every dish was built to work with the wine, not just sit next to it:
- Braised beef brioche terrine — layers of slow-braised beef and brioche, seared in a little beef fat for crispiness and flavour
- Seared tuna with wasabi emulsion — sharp and clean, a good pairing for a Rimapere white wine
- Marinated lamb, charred over open coals — Using smoke and lighting effects to give the illusion of glowing embers under the lamb
- Chocolate and 24-carat gold leaf choux buns — the finish, paired with a sweet wine to send guests off properly
The Cheeseboard
If you’d asked me beforehand which part of the night would get the most attention, I’d have guessed the lamb, or maybe the gold leaf. I’d have been wrong.
We had a cheeseboard built from a huge piece of tree trunk, about 4ft long, hand-finished so it could stand as its own centrepiece rather than just a surface for cheese. Dressed with grapes, chutneys, fresh fruit, and a proper spread of cheeses, it became the thing people gravitated toward.
The most popular item in the room isn’t always the thing that takes days to prep and cook. Sometimes it’s just a well-made board and some great cheese.
The Moment
From where the guests stood, none of the pressure was visible. Just the skyline, a sommelier explaining what was in their glass, and food that matched it. That’s really the whole job, making sure whatever’s happening behind the scenes stays there.
Why It Worked
We didn’t get everything perfect that night, and I’d be suspicious of anyone who tells you they always do. The trick is making sure the guests don’t notice. But most of an event like this is decided before a single guest arrives: the ice lugged up in advance, the sommeliers briefed to move in step with the food, the small kitchen made to work with the right planning.
If nothing visible goes wrong, it’s usually because everything invisible already has and got solved before anyone noticed.
