Written with Giorgio de Maria Fun Wines
“Our food system is broken, but I think hospo is a bit broken too.” - Alex Elliot-Howery, Cornersmith
To be fair, poor Alex sounded a little broken too.
It makes me so sad to watch restaurants and cafes struggle through the inevitable belt tightening. So many small businesses engaged in feeding, nurturing and educating – not just their customers but their own staff too. These are bastions of our culture and community.
I’m also convinced the restaurant, food and wine industry can be the trojan horse for tackling many of our environmental woes, if we just let them. I feel like there’s an army of chefs, somms, FOH and producers who are prepared to mobilise – and yet we’re asking them to march on an empty stomach.
We need to be part of the solution, otherwise who will?
Producers:
- At the vanguard of that environmental battalion, there was (unsurprisingly) some further discourse over the question of invited guests and “intruders” and otherwise at La Dive. I have picked four for you to ponder:
“The hunt for the great flaw villain. Yet another discourse very much of Our Time. To castigate the neighbor who works organically but who is too extreme in his vinification; when beside him the guys working conventionally flirt with poison and even receive support from the state.” Anjou vigneron Romain Verger, via Facebook
“Free wines, living wines, that’s it. Impose nothing. Know how to wait for wines when they don’t taste good. Vignerons and retailers, let’s educate our clients to have patience. Don’t bend to the demands of sommeliers and wine bar merchants who want free wines without ‘deviance’ that stay intact for two days in open bottles so as not to lose the margins on even one glass. If you ‘natural’ vignerons don’t resist that, the market for natural wine will become standardized. For me it’s already well down that path.” Strasbourg caviste Jean Walch of Au Fil du Vin Libre, via Facebook
“If we want zero [additives], we have to be ready to accept light imperfections… Make-up is used to mask flaws, but do we really need it?” Alsace vigneron Christophe Lindenlaub, via Facebook
“It amazes me that, as a community that mostly agrees that all the hard work is done in the vineyard, we end up arguing about details in the winery. What’s in the wine only affects the drinker. What’s used in the vineyard affects the whole ecosystem.” - Oliver Stevenson-Goldsmith
- At the other end of the spectrum, Coles are faking it. No-one can be that surprised, can they? These wines are often yeasted, enzymed, acidified, heavily sulfited, fined, filtered, degassed; from vineyards treated with synthetic pesticides, herbicides and fertilizers – who’s shocked they’re fabricating a story to go with?
- Perhaps more shocking is this allegation that wines are being sent around the world having been coravin-ed (a new verb?). A lot of finger-pointing here, but the accusation is of either quality control, sampling, or worse of rebottling. This is the second attack on Versus, the first from @jura_wine, the second via Korean somm @channy_son.
Restaurants:
- Is the hospitality industry on the brink of collapse? I know everyone can hear the little boy and his wolf or the little chicken and her sky in that statement: FBT, GST, RBT, Covid. We have had this conversation over and over.
And yet …
With only 19% reaching their profit margin of 10% (!!) in 2021, we’re back asking the question, we’re back questioning the system.
“[Cornersmith is] where we could get people thinking about food … not in a preachy way, but in a conversational way. It’s always been an education place (even if we didn’t realise at the time). Good times, but also education … I don’t feel like Cornersmith has been a failure by any means, but I really thought I could change things and I now don’t feel like that because I think it needs bigger systemic change.”
This is the very eloquent (and intelligent) Alex Elliot-Howery, in her fabulous podcast interview with Dani Valent. The economy and, perhaps, our way of life is making it nigh on impossible for hospo to be viable. “We don’t want to cut corners, because we know that’s what it means on a bigger scale – but I feel like it needs to be tiny, tiny or a bigger restaurant group – I don’t know how small business survives. And I worry that we then lose diversity …” She’s right, so much of the magic happens in the middle – the people who are supporting a handful of people and families, maybe five maybe 20 (by this, I mean their staff – it’s an incredible achievement to have your work/business support the lives of others).
There’s also that desire to do good - to create something that can help the environment, that can fix a little of our broken food system - also tangled up in this mess. The messengers and advocates for solutions will be the collateral damage in that loss. We can’t have that.
“I don’t feel it’s an individual’s responsibility. What I do think is that raising awareness is everybody in the hospitality industry’s responsibility; whether that’s to the complexities of the industry or to the ingredients they’re using, or how to reduce packaging, or whatever thing they’re interested in. We need leaders in hospitality, like all industries need leaders. We’ve all got this one life and if you don’t try to make change or have purpose what’s the fucking point?”
I particularly liked this from Ben Liebmann (former COO at Noma for many years and is now consulting to food businesses in Sydney) found in Dani’s article on the topic: “Why aren’t we having a conversation around GST relief on hospitality? Why aren’t we having a conversation about fringe benefits tax, about rebates and offsets to future-proof the industry around ESG [environmental, social and governance pillars] or technology? … The film industry gets offsets and tax breaks, but I would argue hospitality is far more impactful in terms of employment, a sense of community, and a place for changemakers. This industry is vital, more important than ever.”
- Over in WA, Max woo-ed me again. Another charming, thoughtful review of a humble restaurant (“If you’re looking for an example of what commitment to craft and half-a-century of muscle memory tastes like, go directly to Yip.”) Outside the square and yet so worthy, he really is nailing his own brief (I daresay, he’s also nailing Alex’s above, too).
I wanted everything, but particularly these: “… the dumplings’ delicate skin metamorphises, its golden, barely-there skin disintegrating in the mouth like a communion wafer. I can’t remember the last time I had my mind blown by a dish with a per-unit cost of less than $1.50 …” I miss dumplings so much Jimmy and I have taken to skipping the “y for yum cha” page in Alphabetical Sydney to alleviate the heart ache.
- Besha’s review of Gerald’s Bar also tickled. Same ideas, different state. The small, the incubators, the regulars. “How to score such a place with numbers and hats? It’s practically impossible. I’ll assign the points and let them mean what they say, but for the record, I think institutions like this are priceless, unrankable, above the fray. I can’t imagine Melbourne without Gerald’s, and I hope I never have to.”
Words:
- There is an interesting article in this month’s Feiring Line on the use of natural sulphur, “the real stuff - yellow, odiferous, straight from the volcano” (as opposed to the petrochemical-derived version conventionally used in winemaking). After much experimenting the product is now available in pellet form in France. The article quotes a few winemakers willing to talk about using it (and a handful of others wishing to remain anonymous due to the fact that it is “not exactly legal in the EU”).
Burgundian Thibault Liger-Belair started toying with it in 2014: “the natural sulfur wine was brighter, clearer, and cleaner and it did a better job of preserving the grape’s expression,” he said, particularly in comparison to those with petrochemical sulphur, that were flatter and less interesting. He also noted he could use less of it. Friend and fellow-adopter Charles Lachaux of Vosne said the wine acted more like a sulphur-free wine. Now, according to Feiring, there is a swarm of users in Burgundy.
The controversy, Feiring notes, doesn’t end with the legality of putting it in the bottle: “Sulfur mining is dangerous and the conditions for the miners can be deplorable. The largest source of the element comes from Mount Ijen in Indonesia - which often gets into the news for the abuse of workers - and it seems difficult to trace the element’s origins. Poutays [producer of this sulfer pellet form] claims he gets his sulfur from alternative deposits in Italy or Poland.”
Feiring concludes: “This winter, a rumor spread that a Burgundy winemaker had been busted. Trying to verify that has been impossible. The secrecy is the major reason reporting this story has taken years. But finally I just said, to hell with it, I’m going to tell you what I’ve learned even though few people want to go on record.
“Acknowledging the ethical and legal concerns, I’m fascinated by the practice,” concludes Feiring, “the debate and the trend. I would love to see this studied in the laboratory. But meanwhile, the contraband will continue.”
- Finally, for something a little less controversial, a little more ubiquitous, nerd out on frozen peas here.