By late January it will carry 1200 cuvees, ranging from $25 quaffers to $5000 wallet breakers. Take a look inside this inventive Newstead newcomer.
Imagine the rumpus room of your dreams, but full of wine. This, essentially, is the vibe at Fountainhead Winehouse, which opened earlier this month in a basement space on Doggett Street in Newstead.
These kinds of premises, in unusual places with that aspect of discovery, are like gold dust, which makes you wonder if Dan Wilson – who only opened LPO Wine with Matt Okine in June — and business partner Chris Banham were motivated by a bit of opportunism to open this fabulous wine shop and bar.
But, really, it’s been years in the making.
“Dan and I have been wanting to do something together for a long while,” Banham says. “Originally, it was a pizza shop. But with Dan opening LPO and getting a better sense of what Brisbane people wanted … the type of space that is, and some of the services that we wanted to offer, [Fountainhead] fit perfectly with how Dan interacts with people, builds a community – all that great stuff you see at LPO.
“It’s just that finding the space, it went from idea to reality pretty quickly.”
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Finding the space yourself will take a little conviction; the 54 Doggett Street commercial block it sits beneath is about as faceless as they come. But head down the carpark ramp to the left of the building and there it is: a low-lit basement that Wilson and Banham – and a small cadre of collaborators – have treated with a light but engaging touch.
There’s art from Miguel Aquilizan and Jess Dorizac, textiles by George Park, and furniture by George Greathead. Leading the overall design was Julia Cox of jcHQ, with Jack Hamilton looking after the carpentry.
It feels thrown together, but it only takes a moment to realise that’s by intent not accident.
“We wanted the space to feel like a friend’s living room,” Banham says. “You’re maybe a little jealous of their designs, but you feel very comfortable being there. It needed to feel warm and inviting.
“It was really quite an ad-lib process of trying things out – seeing what worked, what could we do ourselves, what could we afford, and then meeting lots of Brisbane makers … people who really just gave like a generous amount of time and effort towards this concept. We were really lucky for that.”
You’re here for the wine, though, of course, whether to drink in or take away.
Fountainhead has around 800 cuvees in stock – “by mid next week, I think we’ll have maybe 1000 to 1200,” Wilson says – with somewhere between 350 and 400 currently on the shelves.
“We want to obviously get as much local stuff on the shelves as possible, but wines are, of course, expressed through the landscape, grape and winemaker, and that means having a good international subset,” Wilson says. “You will never find a wine in Australia that smells like a wine made in the northwest of Italy, or around Alba and Barolo. Those aromatics and that textural quality are indicative of that particular landscape.”
Pretty much every price point is covered, with Fountainhead peddling drops for as little as $25 and ranging right up to cellared $5000 bottles of Domaine de la Romanée-Conti, the Burgundy producer that’s considered among the most expensive in the world.
Other examples Wilson shouts out are A & C Ainsworth’s Rosé of Cabernet from the Macedon Ranges; a Serragghia di Gabrio & Giotto zibibbo produced by legendary winemaker Gabrio Bini; and the grenache-driven Bruno Duchene La Luna Rouge from Roussillon in the south of France.
“Wine can be very subject to gatekeeping,” Banham says, “where a coveted wine’s price in a shop doesn’t necessarily reflect its rareness. Dan’s in charge of the pricing and he just doesn’t do that.”
“Whether you’re buying a $200 bottle or a $25 bottle, you still can come into a venue like this and enjoy something for a reasonable price,” Wilson adds. “A lot of it is the way the room feels and the design aspects and the concept – it’s to make people feel comfortable and like they’re not excluded from this experience.”
Open Wed-Sun 11am–10pm
Matt Shea is Food and Culture Editor at Brisbane Times. He is a former editor and editor-at-large at Broadsheet Brisbane, and has written for Escape, Qantas Magazine, the Guardian, Jetstar Magazine and SilverKris, among many others.
