- London
wine club 67 Pall Mall is opening aSingapore outpost in famed shopping district Orchard Road. - Monthly membership costs 200 Singapore dollars ($150) for Singapore residents.
- The location is set to launch in September and to offer 1,000 wines by the glass.
Raise a glass, wine lovers. London's private members' wine club, 67 Pall Mall, is opening an outpost in Singapore, where it will offer a collection of 1,000 (yes, you read that right) wines by the glass.
The idea for 67 Pall Mall was born when ex-Barclays banker and avid wine collector Grant Ashton decided he could no longer stomach the markups on wine at restaurants.
"I was dreaming of a wine club where I and like-minded friends could dine well and drink spectacularly - but at reasonable prices," Ashton told Insider.
Reconnoitering London, he discovered a historic Sir Edwin Lutyens-designed building in St James, London, which had been left vacant for 15 years - and everything fell into place. Since opening in 2015, 67 Pall Mall's collection of 6,000 wines from 50 countries and low-margin pricing has drawn enthusiasts and the who's-who of the wine world.
Olivier Krug (of the eponymous Champagne house), Emmanuel Cruse (of Château d'Issan) and the late Steven Spurrier (who famously organized the Judgement of Paris, where Californian wines trumped their French counterparts) are just a few of the names who have headlined events at the club.
A new home for wine in Singapore's renowned shopping street
Opening in September, 67 Pall Mall Singapore will be located right in the heart of Orchard Road, Singapore's famed shopping precinct. The space will stretch across the 15,000-square-foot, 27th-floor penthouse of Shaw Centre. Double-height floor-to-ceiling windows and a terrace afford stunning panoramic views of Orchard Road and far beyond.
"It immediately appealed to me that like St James, the space has historical significance," Ashton said of the location. The penthouse was formerly the home of Runme Shaw, founder of the film distribution and cinema chain company Shaw Organisation.
Led by designer Russell Sage (who worked on the Goring Hotel in London, a royal family favorite), the space here will be transformed with marble, plaster, and hand-painted silk wallpaper.
At its heart is set to be a glittering wine tower, a temperature- and humidity-controlled edifice housing thousands of wine bottles. It will divide the bar from the formal dining room, which will serve a menu of signature London dishes like Scotch Egg as well as iconic Asian fare.
Ultra-prestigious labels and affordable hidden gems alike
When pricing its wines, the club works on a small cash mark-up rather than - like most restaurants - a multiple of the cost price.
For example, a 2008 Gevrey-Chambertin Vieille Vigne, Domaine Fourrier costs just £185.00 at 67 Pall Mall London, versus £350 on average in London restaurants. A prestige wine at the top end of the list - say a 1988 Château Lafite Rothschild - costs £1,059.00 at the club, compared with £1,950 at restaurants.
"If you want to drink a Petrus or a Lafite, we have all of those," Niels Sherry, Chief Operating Officer, told Insider. "But we also have everything in between. You can try an inexpensive cheeky Greek wine, for example, or sample a glass of Château d'Yquem (a renowned sweet wine from Bordeaux) before committing to a bottle."
Master of Wine Richard Hemming told Insider that the club also prides itself on offering wines that are hard to find, as well as very old and rare large formats such as Methuselahs, which hold six liters (or eight standard 750ml bottles of wine).
Whichever wine you choose, it'll be served in top-of-the-line Zalto glasses, which have glass bowls with curves tilted at 24, 48 and 72 degrees. This follows the tilt angles of the earth, "cosmic parallels" believed to improve aroma and taste.
Half the club's members are expats
The Singapore club currently has about 2,000 people signed up, Sherry said. He expects membership to top out at 2,500 people. Unlike the London club, which bills on an annual basis, members in Singapore can pay for three-month cycles. The different approaches, Sherry said, can be attributed to the fact that about half of the Singapore club's members are expats.
The club's members hail from places including Australia, Indonesia, and Malaysia, Sherry said. They are typically successful individuals who travel and entertain regularly. Sherry said that among the club's members are bank CEOs, entrepreneurs, and a racing car driver, though he declined to provide any names.
Memberships run SG$200 per month for Singapore residents. Members elsewhere in Asia and the rest of the world will pay SG$150 and SG$90 per month respectively. Members receive access to the club's wine events, which include dinners, masterclasses, and themed tastings.
As for how the pandemic has affected the club's plans, Sherry says the biggest impact was that their launch date was pushed back. Next month, 67 Pall Mall will launch a web-based, wine-centric TV channel with studios in Singapore, London, and Napa Valley. It also plans to open new wine clubs in Bordeaux and Burgundy, France.