A Broad Church

When we opened in 2012, the most recent and iconoclastic trend in the wine industry was the emergence of natural wine (wine made with minimal intervention in the cellar and a low or non-existent addition of the stabilising – but some might say suffocating – effect of sulphur). It seemed then – although this has since cooled – that restaurants were either for or against. Places opened either with all-natural lists, fiercely protective of their point of difference, or restaurants would open with a declaration that they would never possibly countenance anything ‘funky’ alongside their premier cru burgundy or claret. We decided that a broad church might be a bit more fun. In fact we may, rather pompously, have used that exact phrase on the first page of our wine list to explain what followed. Thankfully, our patrons seemed to forgive us this indiscretion. Our first list had 120 bins ranging from the jammiest, ballsiest Australian sledgehammer red to radioactively orange natural stuff made in amphora by avid wine-tradition refuseniks. It was like having the school head prefect and the king goth sat next to each other but neither one knowing the other was there. Because there was always something guests knew they liked on there too, they had the confidence to try something new, something unknown/orange/Eastern European… which in many cases then became their new favoured style of wine.