Right of reply to Stephen Downes' "Cheeky drop, with bouquet a rip-off" published in 'The Sunday Age', February 8th, 2013

A note to the reader:

Before I embark on this 'right of reply', I've got to add that this is not the first time I have stood on my soapbox and stood up for the restaurant industry. On two occasions I have posted open letters to journalists from 'The Age' on my blog in regard to poorly written 'commentary' pieces on the state of the Melbourne restaurant scene. I understand that things are not perfect, or cheap for that matter, in restaurant land but neither is rent, wages or food costs.  So when experts deem they need to report on this, do it properly and report on all facets and not just the shock material.

*

As certainties go, the list below is pretty much a given:

• water is wet

• the sky is blue

• sticks are sticky

• Stephen Downes' food and wine commentary is redundant

On Sunday, 'The Sunday Age' published a piece by Stephen Downes entitled, "Cheeky drop, with bouquet a rip-off". This by-line was the prelude to an article in which a scathing Downes takes a very big stick - no doubt a sticky stick - to the Melbourne restaurant wine mark-up practice. To say that the piece was uninformed, disjointed and quite simply utter rubbish is a Captain Obvious comment if ever ther was one. Also, the negative barrage that Downes has received on twitter these past few days has been enormous. It has also been, in my opinion, a bit nasty. This piece is not meant to be nasty. It is all about being informative and delivering a thought out argument which is something the "Cheeky Drop" piece lacked in spades.

So, there I was in my kitchen drinking my coffee and reading this erroneous piece, and I was compelled to go back and read it again and again and again. In the end I just took out a pen and started taking notes. So, having no formal journalistic training, I will start from the top and work my way through the 19 paragraph story and apologise if I repeat myself or just re-hash the same argument. 

(One thing I will add is that I have formal training as a sommelier from France, wine making experience in France, and Australia, and a Bachelor of Viticultural Science. I have also worked in three of the restaurants mentioned by Downes in a wine role - not the Berwick eatery I must admit - and I am currently working part-time at one of Australia's premier small wine producers while working full time at an independent wine retailer.)

"Melbourne restaurants are charging diners three, four and even more than five times the retail price for a bottle of wine. Many sell little-known wines from small vineyards and exotic overseas wines to prevent price comparisons and to camouflage gouging."

Sorry, what a terrible way to start a story. Yes, Melbourne's restaurants do charge that amount. This is so they can pay bills, Stephen!!! Without going through P&L reports of every eatery in town, I would suggest that the average gross profit a restaurant achieves would be in the realm of 4% - 8%. Restaurants in Melbourne need to pay rent and I would imagine Ezard is paying at least $100K per annum. Below is a  list of out-goings an 'average' restaurant would encounter on a monthly basis:

• rent/council rates

• wages

• insurance

• food costs

• beverages - includes wine, beer, spirits, etc

• utilities - water, electricity, gas

• maintenance

• linen

• crockery/cutlery

• glassware (not cheap)

• cleaning

• marketing

• and plenty more ....

This list I no doubt will reference again so let's just call it List 1.

The second sentence from the first paragraph reads like restaurants are deliberately trying to mislead the diner. I can almost see Downes getting frothy at the mouth a la Christopher Hitchins as he writes this sentence. Complete rubbish I'm afraid. The reason why restaurants choose to showcase smaller producers is to highlight the amazing choice that the customer has, especially from Victoria - terroir, something the big boys can only spell. These small producers quite often only make a small amount of wine which, in some cases, is barely enough to supply the two key restaurant and retail markets in Australia - Sydney and Melbourne - let alone the big chains like Dan's and Vintage Cellars. I am aware of one small producer from Victoria being approached by one of the aforementioned retail chains where they wanted all the wine produced and would pay generously. The wine maker politely refused only to be told (and I was there) "you will never, ever have your wine featured in our published magazine. EVER." This was met with the wine maker simply turning around and getting back on with the job. To this day his wines have, and will not, be sold to this chain.

The 'exotic' wines Stephen remarks about, well that's simple - high AUD equals cheap imports. You do not need a degree in business to work that out. If you honestly believe, Stephen, that restaurants employ this practice to camouflage gauging then a career writing on ports and tides awaits.

The second paragraph sits about as comfortable as a Carlton fan in the middle of 10,000 screaming Collingwood fans at the MCG. It doesn't make sense. But if we need to quantify it then it is an expense from List 1 that I have left out - IT and Social Media management.  Not cheap and very time consuming.

"At Ezard, a glass of By Farr 'Farrside' 2010 Pinot Noir costs $30, yet a whole bottle (about seven glasses) of the 2009 vintage sells for $68."

This is where research and a little wine knowledge would come in handy. Firstly, the standard pour for a glass is 150ml. If Stephen's figures are correct then By Farr produced a wine in a 1,050ml bottle = where can I get one of those???!!!! That's the wine knowledge, but really just common sense. The second point is research and if you were to have done any of this, Stephen, you would have learnt that 2009 was an incredibly disastrous year for wine grape growing in a lot SE Australia due to the intense heat conditions late January and February. Many growers and producers had their volume severely diminished due to fruit effectively burning on the vine. Now I'm a fan of By Farr wines for a few reasons. One is that they make super sexy wine and two is that I believe that Gary and his son Nick displayed a lot of integrity that vintage. Maybe the wine wasn't up to scratch. Maybe the wine was a true reflection of the vintage and it showed in the final product. A difference in price from vintage to vintage is not uncommon where severe weather affects the final harvest. And maybe Gary said to Teague that you can have the 2009 wine for x amount but all things being equal, the 2010 will go back to y amount. This is not uncommon also.

The 'Liquid Gold' table of wines is a remarkable feat in showing your audience you truly have no concept of managing/operating a restaurant. Excluding the first wine, the Matua Valley Sauvignon Blanc, the remaining prices shown as restaurant vs Dan Murphy’s do not seem like the restaurants are ‘gouging’ the customers. So, if you will allow me to explain the concept of ‘economies of scale’, this may take a while, for I also have a degree in economics.

Economies of Scale – a situation in which long-run average total costs decline as the output of a firm increases (also called increasing returns to scale). In layman's terms it's all about the more you have the more you buy, and the more you buy the more you can negotiate a sweeter deal for your outgoings aligned against your final sale price. (Taylor & Frost, Microeconomics; 2nd Ed, 2002). 

Economies of Scale, in this exercise, leads to Duopoly or Game Theory. 

Game Theory provides a framework for studying strategic behaviour in an oligopoly or duopoly. Games, including the prisoner's dilemma, describe the strategies firms can use when they have the options of charging a monopoly price or a lower price (Taylor & Frost, Microeconomics; 2nd Ed, 2002)

To cut to the chase, the stronger you are in the market, the stronger you are at the negociating table. Coles and Woolies buy by the pallet load, with two, three and sometimes ten pallets at a time. Ezard, Vue de monde and even EightyOne will buy by the case, with multiple case purchases of two or three when pouring by the glass. Independent retailers are in the same boat as the restaurants and can simply not compete against the Big 2. The Mt Langi 'Cliff Edge' 2009 Shiraz is a good example. Where I work the wine hits the shelf  at $30. We buy it by the case. The reason Dan Murphy's can sell it at $23 is they use the economies of scale practice, not because they are nice guys.

This brings me to the whole Dan's issue. Your whole, "Many sell little-known wines from small vineyards and exotic overseas wines to prevent price comparisons and to camouflage gouging." has exactly the same ramifications as restaurant's. Smaller independent retailers choose to stock these 'small vineyards' and 'exotic' wines to be different and to give the consumer something else to think of; a different flavour to the Penfolds , Casella's and Rosemounts of the wine industry. What is wrong with celebrating terroir and , as you would put it 'exotic' varieties such as Nero d'Avola, Montepulciano and Aglianico from regions like the Pyrenees, the Canberra District and Gippsland? Wine drinkers love this type of stuff.

The BYO issue. There are many restaurants out there doing it tough but at the same time they are offering BYO nights to encourage punters to bring a bottle in and have a great meal, thus hoping they will possibly venture in on the big dollar nights of Friday and Saturday. By simply writing, “Licensed restaurants generally dissuade customers who want to bring their own” is terrible and myopic. These same restaurants will also probably dissuade the same customers from urinating at the table and shouting obscenities across the restaurant. I simply dissuade your argument there Stephen.

In closing, Stephen, your piece on Sunday was terrible. That is not being vicious and by no means is it a personal attack on you; I do not know you Stephen. We have never met. I have never sold you a bottle of wine. I have never served you at a table.  But if I was to I would make sure your paper napkin was neatly stuffed under your chin. I am sorry that you have received nasty remarks, Stephen, and when you write crap like this you gotta expect some negative feedback

Domaine Robert Chevillon Nuits-Saint-Georges 1er Les Vaucrains 2009

Lets paint the scene. Its Monday afternoon in Melbourne and the Indian summer we enjoyed paints a beautiful day. I am sitting at The City Wine Shop on Spring Street and enjoy the side walk banter of wine reps coming and going and sipping lattes at the bar. My lunch partner is the affable Sam Davies, head sommelier at the new Zuma in downtown Bangkok. He is in town for a few days to cool down from the 120% humidity that has become his life for the past 9 months. We lunch. We wine. We laugh. And we finish with the super sexy Domaine Robert Chevillon Nuits-Saint-Georges Les Vaucrains 2009. Perfect. Exit stage right! Drink with The City Wine Shops chicken snitz Drink till 2023 100/100 Quality cork 13%v/v $160ish The City Wine Shop

A right of reply to Toni Jordan's article in 'The Age', September 7, 2010

It’s been a while hasn’t it.

It was about 12 months ago that I took a fair run up and had a whack at Michael Shmith from ‘The Age’. He wrote a restaurant etiquette article which was published in ‘Epicure’ where he basically had a go at various front of house rituals; my favourite was when he asked a FOH manger where the toilets were only to be looked at oddly and without directions. We all know Michael that the trees across the road from the restaurant would have been fine!

So with this I had my right of reply. And even though I wasn’t at that time working in a restaurant (still not), I couldn’t just read this self indulgent drivel and not get my soapbox out.

Move almost 12 months on and it seems another worldly Age journo has gotten out a stick and gone whack at restaurants again. And the reason this time; dodgy adjectives to describe menu’s!

Now I sort of agree that some menus go a bit far in selling their fare; giving the town from where the beast was raised to me is a little too personal. I don’t want to know that said bovine lived next door to old Mabel in Royal Street Wonthaggi – the district will suffice.

What got up my goat about this article, written by the smiling Toni Jordan, and the same with the Shmith article from last year is they don’t name restaurants. Is this so Dubecki and Co aren’t chased out of eateries by meat cleaver wielding chefs?
When writing an article like this, shouldn’t you start with real examples of what she calls ‘... dodgy adjectives to gloriously describe a menu is simply poor taste.’ What I find poor taste is what she starts with:

''FREE-RANGE organic brown wild duck breast and leg (but not the thigh because that's too fatty), stuffed with hand-polished Israeli pearl couscous, surrounded by a sprinkling of sun-dried heirloom apple picked by naked virgins under a full moon, and crescendoed by kalamata olives pickled by my Greek grandmother in Brunswick 1999.''

Followed with.....

''Slow-cooked tails surgically removed from happy oxen who spend their lives listening to Mozart, nestled on a Doona of home-made wholemeal chestnut gnocchi, napped by a jus studded with chunks of oven-roasted then smoked embryonic beetroot and ribbons of black cavelo nero that has travelled only 80 food miles to get here, on the back of the forementioned now-tailless ox.''

Come on! Show me one menu in Melbourne that comes within three light years of the above rants and I will happily buy you dinner Toni. I bet you that if you saw on a menu, ‘Duck – cooked here’, you would surely be curious in how it was cooked. What about the wine list – would you like red or white with your piece of meat?

All this is is a generalist insight in to Melbourne restaurants: do you think Jacque Reymond or Guy Grossi are two chefs she is taking aim at? What about Shannon Bennet or Teague Ezard? Don’t think so.

I dunno, maybe it has been a quiet news week; I can't think of anything that has been making the news over the past few weeks except for some bloke in FNQ wearing a silly hat!

Question; are all journalists as right wing as Andrew Bolt? Maybe that is a generalist remark on journalists or is Toni just getting a little out of hand like the all of the other Melbourne menu descriptors are. Ponderous, really ponderous!

The Hangover Cure - A love story by Tim Cohen

After a night (and most of the day) of tasting this wine and drinking that beer and washing down that plate of super gorgeous cuttlefish from Gingerboy (to name but a few of the dishes), the head is, and was, generally worse for wear. So, here is the best way out of the ever faithful hangover; a commodity that is always in uber supply yet fetches absolutely no demand.

1. Medicine kit – Barocca, Neurofen, plenty of the wet stuff and Mylanta before you pass out next to a quite annoyed partner; if this does not totally shoo the hangover away, it surely will annoy the be-Jesus out of it!

2. Leftovers – if it was a house party and you can construct a pan flute out of the empty bottles, then this is the plate that will go a long way in helping out point 1.



3. Bratwurst – hop on a tram and leg it in to the Queen Victoria markets (if open and before 3pm) for a gut filling bratwurst from the Melbourne Bratwurst Shop. And why take the tram you ask? Because you will still be pickled from the night before ya drongo!

Simple, concise, unconventional and guaranteed to work, most of the time.....

Season of Stout - Mountain Goat 'Surefoot' Stout

This is a man’s stout baby. Or if you are a woman, knock yourself out too. This is just a brilliant drop.

Definitely one of the leaders of the pack when it comes to independent brewers, Mountain Goat literally started in a back yard back in the grungy early 90’s to now being available all over Oz, and winning heaps of gongs along the way.

The ‘Surefoot’ stout is an ideal winter stout, be it cold or room temperature (the Goat men recommend at about 8°C). In the glass the stout is a very black black, if there can be a black like that, with a smooth caramel head. The nose gives off a crisp coffee caramel whiff with a more toffee whiff when a bit warmer. The mouth is layered with more coffee and toffee, bitter chocolate and liquorice, with the liquorice really coming out as it warms up. Super stuff this one, no doubt about it!!

I would without doubt recommend heading to the ‘Goat Bar’ on a Friday evening or a tour of the brewery on a Wednesday night (bookings required with groups +4). Ya gotta love The Goat.

Drink now
Drink with Beef and Guinness pie - a good one can be found at 'The Spencer Hotel' on Spencer Street, West Melbourne

about $20 a six pack 5% a/v

Mountain Goar Brewery, Corner North and Clark Streets Richmond

http://goatbeer.com.au/

Season of Soup - French Onion and Pichot Domaine Coteau de la Biche Vouvray Moelleux 2002

With each new day dawning to blue sky in cosmopolitan Brunswick, my daughter Imogen asks me if spring is now over and is summer coming sooo quickly. Well my dear, I am sorry to say this is Melbourne, home of the ‘G’, the upside down river and those glorious four seasons in one day....

‘.... lying in the depths of your imagination, Worlds above
and worlds below, the sunshine’s on the black clouds hanging
over the domain.
Even when you’re feeling warm, the temperature could drop away
Like four seasons in one day......’

'Four Seasons In One Day' Crowded House

So with one eye on a beach towel and the other on an umbrella, we in Melbourne are still in the throes of winter, which brings me to soup. But this is no ordinary ‘Season of Soup’ entry. Today is not only our favourite soup (Erin and me), but a Susan match that I reckon is one of the best!

French Onion Soup with Pichot Domaine Coteau de la Biche Vouvray Moelleux 2002 – a big mouthful, but a good one.

French onion soup is pretty much that, onions and lots of them!!!! This is sort of like risotto; lots of looking and lots of stirring. The key element to a good French Onion soup is making sure the pot and onions brown. So here is my French Onion soup.

· brown onions, plenty of them (14 serves four)
· olive oil
· flour, just a pinch
· Gruyere cheese
· butter, optional though
· salt to taste
· crusty bread
· water
· swimming goggles

After cutting up the multitude of onions, add a good glug of oil to the pot and heat. Add onions and add another glug of oil over the onions. Let it sit for a while on heat with the occasional stir. Once there is an obvious reduction in volume or the pot, add butter and season to taste. Keep stirring!! After a while the pot will start to brown over in the hot spots – this is good. Keep stirring.

Once you have the contents a good brown, add flour and stir for another five minutes. This thickens the contents of the pot so it is easier to reduce evenly. Add water to cover entire volume and add a few small cubes of Gruyere for a creamy edge. Reduce to a good ratio of onion and water. Grate some Gruyere over some bread and grill to your liking.

It is important to let the soup sit for a while so you don’t burn your tongue – this bugger is super hot just out of the pot.

Now the wine. Just to let you know that Vouvray is Chenin Blanc. Now Chenin Blanc in Australia gets a bad rap I reckon. Why you ask? Because we don’t get it; that’s at both levels – producing and drinking.

The very best Chenin Blanc’s come out of the Loire Valley in France. Now before you start thinking that I am banging on about French wines and how they are superior to ours (well yes), I’ll just remind everyone that in France they can only grow certain fruit in certain areas, unlike here where we can bloody grow anything any-bloody-where.

So back to the Loire Valley, and in particular to a little town called Vouvray. You punters out there may know this name from a couple of years ago when a nag by the same name was favourite in a couple of group 1 races. If you are like me and put a few bucks on it and are cursing the sound of the name ‘Vouvray’ (cos’ the mongrel didn’t salute once), I am sorry for bringing back bad memories.

Vouvray is situated on the Loire River just west of Tours in central France where Chenin Blanc is King. Here there are three styles, sec, demi-sec and Moelleux; dry, semi dry and Moelleux which is the sweetest of the three and by far the most sought after.

Moelleux wines can have up to 500 grams/litre of residual sugar in them, making them syrupy sweet and perfect with rich food such as Foire Gras.

This Pichot Moelleux has only 94 grams/litre of residual sugar, but this by no means makes it a light weight in this style. The colour is a beautiful light golden/straw with a yellowish hue coming through. The nose is super sweet with candied orange and saffron. Decanting this wine will benefit. After a while in the glass and decanter, this wine develops richness similar to Sauternes that produces a very warming mouth feel with glycerol, honey and marmalade coming through.

The reason I have given this combo the ‘Susan’ is that I reckon this pairing has got equal measure of richness – both develop a natural viscosity with time – and natural sweetness from the caramelised onions and candied orange in the wine. Ohh I do love it!!

Drink till 2032

94

Quality cork (blackened at tip is an indication that it spent time in underground cave)

$55 12.5% a/v

Melbourne's real 'Little Italy' - Mediterranean Wholesalers - 482 Sydney Road Brunswick

There is no mistaking the sounds and smells of Italy. When I first visited Italy in 1998, I spent the best part of three months working in Bardolino, a wine town on the eastern shores of Lake Gardi in the Veneto. When you live or work in Italy, there is a certain respect that needs to be heeded to the locals and local customs. In Bardolino, and I am sure in many other towns of Italy, it was that whatever was put in front of you was to be eaten or drunk – no questions. That spring I put on 5 kg’s while performing manual labour.

Every morning there was the unmistakable smell of coffee; the aroma was that robust that it would dead-set wake you up. Breakfast was generally a small affair (it was for me anyway) with everyone in the vineyard gearing themselves up for morning tea, or the Italian version of morning tea anyway. More coffee, cheese, ham – lots and lots of ham, salami and masses of bread. Lunch was generally grilled fish and dinner was huge.

Each evening the vineyard crew would sit down to what can only be described as a feast; pasta to start with, plates of olives, artichokes, sardines, anchovies, eggplant and a copious amount of other delicacies. Then there came more fish, braised lamb, plenty of veggies and then plenty of more other stuff – every night I tell ya! To finish off we would have a digestive; grappa, amore, strega – whatever and usually home-made.

Like I said, an extra 5 Kg’s.

10 years on and I am living in Brunswick (which we know) with my family and have sadly not been back to Italy since 1999. This brings us to Mediterranean Wholesalers on Sydney Road.

From the outside it’s just another Sydney Road facade, but as soon as you walk thru the doors the smells instantly transport you back to Italy. Everything, and I mean everything you want that is Italian and yum is here. EVERYTHING!!!

Coffee, pasta, cheese, salami, hams, lentils, anchovies, prosciutto, grappa, Barolo, Bardolino, canoli’s, bread, cake, sardines, tinned tomatoes, amore, beer, strega and even retsina. You know what, there’s even more.

Mediterranean Wholesalers is like Bunning’s – you go in there for some basil seeds and come out with three trailer loads of stuff that you don’t need, but hey, seemed like a good idea at the time.

Located at 482 Sydney Road, Mediterranean Wholesalers seems like it has been there forever. It is essentially split in too two areas – dry goods and deli area on the right and alcohol, coffee and bread on the left. The centre isle is essentially pasta heaven; any sort of pasta you can think of is here. The deli is down the back, but you already know this when you walk in from the scent of cheese and meat smallgoods. On the left there is a great assortment of wine, stuff that you will only find here, liqueurs, digestives and imported beers. And the beer is genuine, like the Stella Artois – this one is brewed in Belgium, not Sydney, and only $14 a six-pack – gold!

Also on the left is one coffee machine with one patrone behind the grips. You will not find any chai or soy or vanilla syrup. This guy makes coffee; cafe latte in the morning and espresso and macchiato in the afternoon. And if you get your daughter to ask nice, he will make a little hot chocolate for her.

Mediterranean Wholesalers is Italy in Melbourne. Lygon Street Carlton thinks it is Melbourne’s answer to Italy, but is so far off the mark when it comes to authenticity and quality. Mediterranean Wholesalers has the smell, or the stink - a really sweet stink, sound and soul of the Italy that I experienced 10 odd years ago (yeah yeah, I know it sounds corny).

By now you know I have a Birk rating for eateries. Now Mediterranean Wholesalers is not what you would call an eatery, but it has everything, so it is going to get a Birk – a gold one.

Buy your pasta there, buy your wine there and buy your cheese there. Just get there.