T
he glass of gamay I’m drinking is delicious.
It was produced by Andrew Nielsen, an
Australian winemaker who works in Burgundy
and sells wine under the highly regarded
Le Grappin label. It’s full of lipsmacking purple fruit,
perfect with the succulent lamb on my plate here at
Clipstone, one of London’s best new bistros. It’s a
very classy drink. And it only cost me five quid a
glass because it was poured on tap, from a keg.
Nielsen is one of a growing number of
winemakers servicing the restaurant
trade in the UK and around the
world with kegs, as more and more
establishments install systems for
pouring wine on tap. Nielsen also
sells 1.5-litre plastic pouches (with
a tap) of Beaujolais, Burgundy and
Côtes du Rhône called Bagnums:
upmarket modern iterations of the
goon sack, aimed at picnickers and
budget-conscious drinkers who don’t
want to sacrifice quality for cost.
Wine on tap is nothing new, of
course. Neither is the concept of selling wine in a
collapsible bladder: the bag-in-box is an Australian
innovation that dates back to the 1960s. The difference
is that the quality in the 21st century is much better
than it was in the 20th.
Kegs of wine can be found at all of the venues in
the Lucas Restaurants group in Melbourne and Sydney,
from popular Asian-styled diners Hawker Hall and Chin
Chin to the top-end Japanese, Kisumé. In the group’s
larger, more casual restaurants, keg wine – poured fromYou can’t put new wine in old bottles, but you can put
good wine in kegs – and casks, and pouches – and still
not compromise on taste, writesMAX ALLEN.
up to six different taps in some venues – now accounts
for as much as 30 per cent of all wine sales.
The benefits to the restaurant are obvious: the
wine stays fresher, it costs less and is easier to dispense.
The key to success with consumers, says chief wine
buyer Philip Rich, is ensuring that what comes out
of those taps is as delicious as it can be.
“The trick is to work closely with producers who
make really good wine,” he says. “In Melbourne, a lot
of our wine is made for us by Tom Carson at Yabby
Lake, and in Sydney we’ve worked
with Brokenwood in the Hunter.
They’re putting the same quality wine
that they’d put in bottle into keg.”
When the Lucas venues started
pouring wine from keg a few years
ago, says Rich, there was some
resistance from staff and consumers
who thought only beer or pre-mix
should be served that way.
“It reminds me of working
in restaurants in the early 2000s
when the Clare Valley’s top riesling
producers started using screw caps,” he says. “At first
customers would send the bottles back because they
thought only cheap, low-quality wines came in screw
caps. But then they got used to the idea and now
screw caps are a non-issue: everyone accepts them.
It’s the same with wine on tap: customers have realised
they can get the same quality wine from keg as they
do from bottle.”
Sydney sommelier James Hird has installed wine
on tap in some of the venues in the restaurant groupBy the barrel
“I really like the
idea that good-
quality, well-farmed
wine can also be
accessible: even
my mum drinks
orange wine now.”Drinks
Opposite: 2018
“Owen’s Big
Orange” wine
boxes at The
Dolphin Hotel. PHOTOGRAPHY CHRIS JANSEN (BERTRAND BESPOKE & DOMAINE GAUBY).44 GOURMET TRAVELLER