The sheer depth and quality of the liquid offer would make many an on-trend inner-city wine shop blush. The commitment here runs deep, and it is a hub for the cutting-edge makers of the nearby wine regions plundering the cellar and drinking in with exceptional cheeses and deli specialties.
Indeed, for the Lattas is was just the fulfilment of a long-held desire to move to larger premises and get some more airspace to properly stretch out their substantial wingspan. The old site was on Daylesford’s main drag, Vincent Street, as is the new one. It’s somewhat harder to miss, though, housed in a historic building that occupies one of the corners of the roundabout that ushers locals and tourists in and out of town.
The Lattas are pivotal to a new wave in the region, from making to selling. Owen Latta is a second-generation winemaker who jumped in deep at his family’s Coghill’s Creek winery, Eastern Peake, at the age of 15. That was to be the hands for his dad, with an accident taking him out of action mid-harvest. The younger Latta hasn’t looked back since, now making both the family wines and his own expressions. His own label, Latta Vino, extends very much down a lo-fi, natural line and this is much the groove that the Winespeake needle plays its tune from.
Taking the lead first with Wine & The Country and now Winespeake, Jen Latta runs operations, stocking a dizzying array of minimal-intervention wines. That offer leaves no stones unturned in the surrounding regions, featuring lo-fi and natural producers from the Macedon Ranges, Ballarat and Central and Western Victoria, but its scope is significantly more ambitious than that.
Winespeake is a place where unicorn bottles frolic, rare imports matching the local offerings, with star sommelier Jez Shiell on the job to help guide customers to the right wine. The dynamic winemaking community in the region and an increasingly educated local populace ensure those wines don’t gather much dust, but bottles that may be tussled over in Fitzroy get a little extra shelf time in spa country.
“There’s always a thirst for local producers from visitors to our region, and there’s a bunch of winemakers who live here these days who don’t want to drink only their own stuff!” says Shiell. “For sure, minimal intervention is a keystone … the most important elements are no glyphosate or synthetics, no inoculated yeast, and no fining or filtering. We like the funk; we don’t like the mouse. We also support winegrowers, farmers and winemakers, not corporations.”
A very reasonable corkage fee will get any one of those 900-plus bottles opened and poured into excellent glasses at one of the 15 stools lining the counter (made from local timber by Daylesford’s Hugh Makin, who also made the cellar table that can be booked out for groups of up to 12) that spans the front window. You can also choose from near-to 20 wines by the glass, and snacks come courtesy of the ridiculously well-stocked deli, featuring local and imported cheese, charcuterie, pickles, bakery goods and the like.
“We’re not a restaurant in wine-bar clothing,” declares Shiell. “We’re all about the pop-in wine-focused casual guest – prices are retail plus $10 corkage! The menu is for grazing, snacking and enjoying a few bottles.”
At Geralds, the early arrivals dictate the open bottles, which can be switched around once exhausted, with ten typically open at any one time.
Bar Liberty is a canvas for the talents of ex-Attica duo Banjo Harris Plane and Michael Bascetta, a disruptor, a chance to throw out the formality, the rules, and have at it with instinct and raw talent.
Old Palm Liquor is the younger Lygon Street sibling of the already iconic Neighbourhood Wine. Opening in 2013, and expressly reflecting it’s anchoring in the local area, Simon Denman and Almay Jordaan’s Neighbourhood Wine has also become a destination for those further afield, drawn by Jordaan’s Euro-leaning menu and the vast collection of minimal-intervention wine…
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