Clever Cellars

March 1999

At the Herald Sun Cellar Door at Southgate next weekend you can have a splendid time tasting fine wines, meeting winemakers and learning about Victorian vineyards. Chances are you’ll be tempted into ordering some dozens for home.

Question is, where will you put them?

Sadly not many homes come with underground cellars these days and trying to install one can be a hazardous exercise. After much expense, effort and propping up of the roof, we were able to dig one at the Queenscliff Hote and then to have the pleasure of being able to fill it with the best of the Bellarine Peninsula’s wines along with lots of handsome wooden boxes from France. Such fun developing a good list and so expensive to maintain.

A few years later, when our first restaurant in Fitzroy became licensed we decided to excavate a cellar there. The floorboards of the back room were pulled up, bookings relocated to the side front room (the former fish ‘n chip shop) and the digging machine moved in one Sunday. A team of apprentice waiters with picks and shovels got down and dirty, then half way through the day, struck rock. Blasting was not an option and plans were abandoned. So an above ground air conditioned space was installed out the back. Not the same romance and not as good for the wine but nowhere near as hazardous as it can be descending narrow steps into a ‘real’ underground cellar to get a second bottle of that delicious wine you’ve just enjoyed.

But if you are serious about wine, enjoy drinking it in perfect condition and are able to purchase it in greater quantities than your immediate needs, you need a cellar. Putting it under beds and in cupboards may provide neat cubby holes but does nothing to maintain the quality of the wine. A constant low temperature (12-16o) is needed with some humidity but with no air movement or vibration in an odorless space. And if you are even more serious, and buy wines as a financial investment for possible re-sale, then you must really take care of your assets. These days wine connoisseurs and buyers are concerned to know more about an old rare wine than is written on the label. They want to know where it has been cellared, who has been looking after this valued object?

Which is what Liquid Assets is all about, an interesting new concept started by Ross Dunning and John Nielsen, two hospitality industry professionals who saw the need for a ‘wine management company’. Total management which provides strictly controlled (both in temperature and in security) storage facilities, assists in valuations and provides guarantees to vendors and buyers of the stored wines.

NEW

The cost of cellaring depends on the quantity but it averages out at $1.50 per case, per month. You can cellar just that one precious bottle packed into a case, or you can fill it with a dozen, for the same price. This service is not just for private cellar owners, a number of restaurants with limited storage are making arrangements with vineyards to get their annual allocations delivered to Liquid Assets and stored until they are ready to put on their wine lists. And the wine industry is also taking advantage of a pleasant tasting room above the ‘cellar’ (not underground but with state of the art, climate control) for tastings. Some serious wine dinners have already been held in the Abbotsford building with food from ex Latin, Piero’s chef, Brad French of FIFF (9381 2400) preferred caterers for functions at Liquid Assets (9415 8801).

Earlier this month Brad prepared a seven course menu including a nage of yabbies, pigeon with truffle paste and a partridge risotto with porcini to match Bass Phillip’s wines.

As well as the Herald Sun Cellar Door at Southgate, there’s some other activities to try and get to in the Melbourne Food & Wine Festival. An interesting new event this year is the Seasonal Slow Banquet, a bacchanalian feast prepared by chefs Bill Marchetti, Valerio Nucci and Robert Castellani at the Metro Craft Centre next Saturday evening. The Slow Food Movement has been quietly gathering strength in Melbourne since first emerging in the Festival with their Top Ten Slow hits last year. This year’s feast will showcase Melbourne as the "first official Slow City outside Italy", a title it shares with Orvieto, Bra, Positano and Greve, places dedicated to ‘escaping fast food of the 90’s and to promoting a city lifestyle grounded in quiet pleasure and sustainability".

And it will provide a unique tasting opportunity - some free-range pork of the English middle white breed, which is raised in Northern NSW but is not commercially available. Pig farmer Craig O’Reagan, has been breeding this variety for his own use and also for Marchetti’s who have the animals slaughtered as they order them. This type of pig takes longer to mature than normal pigs and carries more fat, making it juicier, tastier and more tender than normal.

But there will also be prime Black Angus beef, duck, Ligurian style shellfish salad and an abundance of autumn fruit and vegetables sourced by Cameron Russell of the Queen Victoria Market. The event is being co-ordinated by Ros Harvey of Epicure Catering, phone 1800 646 455. And, on the same booking number, for just a taste of Slow Food, today of George Biron Sunnybrae is providing a Slow Lunch at the Metro served with a glass of wine for $18.