Sipster central

Crowds are flocking to The Dolphin to enjoy old-fashioned counter meals in the public bar, to eat pizza and spaghetti and tiramisu in the dining room, to discuss the finer point of grower champagne with fellow grape geeks in the wine room. And as the wine director of The Dolphin - as well as the other venues in owner Maurice Terzini's restaurant group, including Icebergs and Da Orazio - Hird has tailored the liquid offering to suit each area of the hotel, channelling his years of experience running establishments as varied as Wine Library and Vincent, and co-founding the Rootstock artisan wine and food festival.

The wonderfully retro "pony", with its modest 140ml capacity, has been reintroduced as the beer glass of choice in the front bar, along with $10 glasses of red Lambrusco and a short but broad-ranging and affordable list. Classic locals such as Tyrells Hunter Valley semillon rub shoulders with newwavers such as a skin-contact semillon from Tom Shobbrook in the Barossa; everything's offered by the glass (most around $10) and nothing's over $65 a bottle.

The drinks step up a notch in the dining room: the list expands to include more well-priced wines from top producers - Ravensworth's marvellous Canberra sangiovese; Paulo Scavino's Piedmontese nebbiolo - with a stronger emphasis on all things Italian in keeping with the setting and the menu: burrata, minestrone, cotoletta, etc.

Things get more intense in the narrow, packed, buzzy wine room: the beer on tap is from cult Tasmanian farm brewery Two Metre Tall; the much more extensive list features obscure French ciders, rare Japanese sakes, amber wines from Georgia, flor-aged wines from Jura, gamay from Central Otago, rose from the Barossa; young tawny port and ancient sherry; rustic pet-nats and Grand Cru champagnes. This list isn't for the casual wine-drinker who likes to find recognisable and familiar labels: it's for the curious and obsessed, the adventurous and informed, and requires putting your trust in the hands of the sommelier. And that's the whole point.

"Diners these days are keen on connecting with the person who made the wine," says Hird. "Not just where it's from or what grape it's made from. That's how I like to drink, and I really want to engage other people in this conversation."

I manage to find a seat in the wine room between a couple of winemakers and a local celebrity baker. At the end of the bar a famous chef and his family are eating pizza and drinking Negronis. Behind the bar, Hird and Terzini calmly keep up with the constant stream of opening, pouring, talking and clearing.
All to an energetic soundtrack that resonates strongly with this Gen-X drinker: Public Image Ltd, Television, The Specials ...

There are plenty of great wine experiences to be found among this year's Hot 50 restaurants. The comprehensive, cheeky, gorgeously designed wine list at Hubert in Sydney is an instant classic, a fabulous manifesto of how much fun it is to drink in this underground pleasure palace. The appropriately incredible list of fortified wines at Fino at Seppeltsfield winery is reason enough to make the trek to the Barossa. The tiny, ever-changing wine selection at Fleet in Brunswick Heads is a masterclass in how to pack heaps of wine variety and enjoyment into a very small space.

The wine program at The Dolphin offers all these elements in abundance - fun, focus, value, fitness-for-purpose, generosity - but it's the energy, thought and attention to detail that sets it apart.