Wine cellar at your door

Most people associate cellar-door tastings with a leisurely drive in the country followed by tastings overlooking vineyards.

In times gone by they would move on for lunch or dinner at a country eatery or restaurant. The standbys were Pheasant Farm or 1918 Bistro in the Barossa, Salopian Inn or The Barn in McLaren Vale, and Maximilian's in the Adelaide Hills.

The cellar doors decided they could be restaurants, too. Magill Estate made the ultimate statement, but the big new cellar doors began incorporating dining as part of the experience.

The Barossa Valley, in particular, has seen a number of big wineries offering modern, large, steel, stone and glass restaurants that provide dining experiences in spectacular settings. Upstairs at Hollicks in the Coonawarra and Banrock Station in the Riverland are other fine examples. In Victoria's Yarra Valley it has become de rigueur to develop a restaurant attached to the cellar door.

Following the lead of Magill Estate at Magill, D'Arry's Verandah at D'Arenberg in McLaren Vale, Rockford's exclusive Stonewall Table in the Barossa and The Lane's bistro in the Adelaide Hills have been moving the goalposts in the past decade by offering exceptional dining to go with the views.

The result is a blurring of the lines between cellar-door tastings and fine dining experiences, with the wineries clearly hoping that the chance to try wines with exceptional food will enhance wine sales.

Spoon Restaurant, which opened in September in Gouger St in the heart of Adelaide, might just be the next logical development in this trend.

Why drive to the country for all these fine cellar door and food experiences?

Aramis Vineyards of McLaren Vale has brought its cellar door into the CBD, so you can pop in for lunch or dinner, taste a flight of wines and take a bottle or a case away.

Spoon by Aramis Vineyards, as it is formally titled, does not have spectacular views or hectares of glass and steel. Instead, it has been artfully squeezed around the lift lobby of a modern office tower just down from the law courts. It feels like one of those tiny enotecas you find in Rome. Inside, there are just a few tables and not much room to manoeuvre, although Spoon has claimed a sizeable slice of the pavement and expands into the lift lobby during office hours.

Cellar door manager-cum-maitre d' is Alex Ambelas, an experienced sommelier. It is the wine selection that poses the central problem for a city cellar-door restaurant and gives Spoon its edge.

Aramis makes a small and select range of wines, but it doesn't want to end up promoting cases of Grange or Jacobs Creek by accident. Ambelas resolves the problem by offering the Aramis reds alongside a range of international wines. If you stray past McLaren Vale reds, it is into the Rhone, Chianti, Sonoma Valley, Marlborough, Columbia Valley (Washington State) and Spain.

These come with prices ranging from modest to extravagant, but the few I have tried are a testament to Ambelas' choices.

There being no Aramis whites, we had a gruner veltliner from Austria and found it elegant and satisfying. The Aramis 2005 cabernet sauvignon was a typical mid-range McLaren Vale cabernet of good breeding - $44 in the restaurant, $24 takeaway. It is a mark of Aramis owner Lee Flourentzou's ambitions that he is prepared to have it punching up against some international benchmarks.

The kitchen can be best described as very well-organised galley, tiny by most restaurant standards, but packed with equipment.

The food has been kept to eight very distinct choices, offered mostly in entree and main-course options. Because this was a Lloyd family dinner with four of us and a visiting friend from France, we motored our way through most offerings and the desserts.

In particular, the partridge in a pear tree is a well-constructed dish of roast breast (with a few small bones) interleaved with pear with a delicious jus led by mandarin oil. A small pot contains a more intensely flavoured rillette of leg and there is a heavier reduction from the roast mixed with cream in a small jug for the stout-hearted. A pear tree shaped out of crisped parmesan finishes off the dish.

One of two vegetarian dishes, a yellow curry of grilled aubergine, also stood out, deep-spiced without too much heat, and accompanied by an aromatic rice dish that was a treat in itself, and a third dish of fattoush with a mixture of seasonal vegetables.

A good introduction to the restaurant is a Spoon tasting for two, with delicate, painstakingly arranged little serves of four of the main courses. We tried it as an entree for five, and decided the best part was mopping up the combined juices with bread.

All the desserts met with approval, but the caramelised pear custard, served in a small, heavy-bottomed metal pan with an accompaniment of cinnamon ice cream, won the day.

THE RESTAURANT

SPOON BY ARAMIS VINEYARDS
19 Gouger Street, city.
Phone 8410 7880.

Open: 8am to 6pm Mon, Tues;
8am to late, Wed-Sat.

Breakfast: 8am-11am.
Lunch: Noon-3pm.
Dinner: 6pm to late.

Seating: Inside, 35 (24 after business hours), outside 33.

Wheelchair access and facilities.

Owner: Lee Flourentzou.
Chef: Mark Cooper.

THE VERDICT

THE BILL

Entrees: $19.50 to $32.50.
Mains: $23.50 to $58.50.
Desserts: $13.50 to $16.50.
Corkage. $20, but not encouraged in a cellar door.

Summary
Smart and well-organised with a clever interior design and food of a high quality along international cuisine lines. Spoon is a good spot for inquisitive drinkers looking for food with overseas wines. It's biggest drawback is a tendency to congestion through lack of space.

Score: 15 / 20

Score guide: Below 10: Awful. 11-12: Fair. 13-14: Good. 15-16: Special. 17-18: Outstanding. 19: Brilliant. 20: Perfect.