Natural selection
When Mike Bennie and Lou Dowling went looking for a sister space for P&V Wine & Liquor Merchants, their incredibly popular Newtown 'bottle shop' — a term that hardly does justice to the joyful vinous space they have created — they searched extensively across the Eastern Suburbs.
“We looked in Bondi, we looked in Surry Hills; we wanted a place with a strong sense of community,” says Bennie. “People kept asking us to come to the east but the concept of community is really important to us. We wanted a place with a village feel.”
Their hunch was that Paddington might be the place, and after a tour of the abandoned Micky’s cafe on Oxford St, they decided they had landed in the right spot.
“Micky’s has this amazing upstairs space for a restaurant and large-scale events, and a courtyard out the back where you can sit and have a drink. And as soon as we opened (in late-February) we were just overwhelmed by the response.”
More than a bottle shop or even small bar, P&V is a wine concept space offering a cross-pollination of ideas based around natural wine. There is a wonderfully considered selection of natural and small-vineyard bottles from Australia and abroad to buy, a courtyard where you can drink the bottle you have bought, or taste from a variety of others on offer over some high-quality European-inspired snacks (think charcuterie, duck terrine, oysters), plus a function space upstairs for Bennie’s curated sell-out food and wine masterclasses and events.
And this month, hot chefs Nicholas Hill (ex-Old Fitz) and Harry Levy (ex-Don Peppino’s) will open Porcine, a restaurant that will operate upstairs from the wine shop through the latter part of the week (the masterclasses all run in the early part of the week).
The utilisation of the different spaces is inspired and Bennie expects the masterclasses to be as popular in Paddo as they are in Newtown. This month’s events include an introduction to Italian natural wine with wine guru Giorgio de Maria (March 16, $65) and 'NOT wine and cheese', an event hosted by food writer Matty Hirsch and Penny Lawson from Penny’s Cheese Shop (March 24, $80).
“Education is implicit in what we do,” Bennie says. “We want to expand the education around natural wine and shift the cultural dial.”
He says he and Dowling are thrilled by the reaction of locals to their arrival.
“We’re casual,” he says. “We are hanging out here in footy shorts and black t-shirts, and I think there was a space for that.
“I’m just loving the people that come through — there’s so many nice people, saying thank you for bringing this to Paddington. They’re saying we needed this. There’s such a sense of gratitude towards us that’s amazing.”
P&V Wine & Liquor Merchants
268 Oxford St