MM: How many wineries are out there now?
JB: About 16, and they’ ve only been around for maybe a little over 20 years.
MM: So, there aren’ t a lot of wineries, but they are putting a lot of effort into it. That’ s fantastic. Shiraz is very well represented on your wine list. Is Shiraz still the biggest seller for Australians?
JB: I think Shiraz is something that Australians hold very close to their hearts. To a certain extent, we like to give them what they want.
MM: Aside from Shiraz and Old World wines, you have primarily cool-climate wines on your list, from Margaret River and the cooler regions in Victoria. Are Australians moving away from fruit-forward wines and toward elegance and food pairing?
JB: Absolutely, for a couple of reasons. For food pairing: most definitely. Our clientele, and people in general, are more focused on enjoying wine with food rather than having the big, bold glass of red that, realistically, when you sit down with a meal, completely overpowers the food. The other topic that seems to be on people’ s minds is alcohol content. The warmer-region wines that have 15 per cent alcohol blows people’ s palates out. Coolerclimate wines have alcohol levels moving down to 12.5 or 13 per cent. They are a lot more food-friendly and a lot more enjoyable. And it seems to be a conscious move on the part of the clientele— these cooler-climate wines are what they are demanding.
MM: There is actually a trend toward people demanding lower-alcohol wines?
JB: Absolutely.
MM: Have you found a surprising food and wine pairing that is a match made in heaven, that’ s all Australia’ s own?
JB: We have a few on the Epi-Curious menu. The lamb with a Eucalypt foam paired with the Orange Cabernet is a truly fantastic match.
SK: Jeremy and I work together a lot on food and wine matching. We shoot from the hip. We’ re doing service that is honest and unpretentious, but still professional. Our approach to food and wine is the same.
MM: Your food menu is unbelievable— it is very large, expansive, and also detailed. How much time do you and Jeremy get to spend pairing wines every week?
SK: We try to do it as much as possible, and I think that this is where we’ re starting to grow, doing the wine dinners. The focus is on pairing the food and the wine. Interestingly, when we do the wine dinners, Jeremy picks out the wines and we talk about how to match food to them. We are not matching the wine to the food, we are doing it the other way around, so the customer actually gets the best of the wine, and a great match with the food. We really have the best of both worlds to work with. b
Explore Altitude’ s wine list at: http:// www. altituderestaurant. com / wine. php.
For a taste of Altitude’ s food menus, visit: http:// www. altituderestaurant. com / cuisine. php.