Bacco an affair of the heart for owner
In case you haven’t noticed Cafe´ Affair at the top of Trafalgar St was renamed as Bacco Restaurant and Wine Bar about 18 months ago and is under new ownership.
Owner Terry Milton set up Milcrest Wines about 10 years ago when he ‘‘bought a chunk of land, dug a hole and threw all my savings in to it.
‘‘I was keen on wine but wondered what the heck I had done and then 10 years later I had another crazy notion of buying the restaurant and putting in a wine bar with a central city cellar door.’’
In his former life Milton was a detective sergeant in the police.
‘‘It was a totally different organisation when I started in the late 80s that had to deal with completely different community issues than those in the force do today.
‘‘There was no methamphetamine, the police were separate from the traffic police and the whole feel around policing was quite different, but the skills learned while policing, particularly around human behaviour, make dealing with issues in hospitality a lot easier.
Milton told me he had always enjoyed wine as a drink and while he was still working in the police he completed the Diploma in Winemaking and Viticulture through EIT.
‘‘It was a great course because I was able to complete it by correspondence and by attending block courses, I just used my annual leave to go on courses rather than have holidays.’’
So having bought a piece of land in Haycock Road he planted Sauvignon Blanc grapes in the mid 2000’s and Milcrest Estate’s first vintage was in 2008. It was one of those wet vintages Nelson has every few years so for someone new to the industry it was a challenging start.
Now in its 10th year, Milton has sold the home block vineyard but is still making wine from his regular established growers in the region. ‘‘There aren’t enough hours in the day to grow grapes and run this business as well as traveling the country selling my wines,’’ he says.
Over the years Milcrest Wines have won gold medals for their Pinot Noir, Syrah and Chardonnay and a ‘‘heap of silver medals.
When it comes to the restaurant and wine bar it was named after Bacco, the Roman God of wine (Baccus being the Latin version).
The restaurant downstairs is treated as a separate entity to the wine bar on the mezzanine floor, but shares the same menu, a menu that has had a full makeover since the days of Cafe´ Affair.
‘‘We changed the menu totally, moved away from the cafe´ culture and more to an upmarket restaurant,’’ Milton said.
‘‘I employed a new head chef, Charlie Boyle, who started in July and who brings a huge amount of experience to the restaurant and I have a great Restaurant Manager, Jo De Ranieri, who keeps the front of house in order.’’
Boyle is from London and Milton says he is a very good fit for what he is trying to create at Bacco.
"He is really creative and has an excellent palate so he can taste the wines and then create dishes to go with them rather than him giving me a menu and me having to match wines with his food, the focus really is on enjoying great food that is designed to go with great wines.’’
De Ranieri is from Brazil, and brings 20 years of hospitality experience having managed her family’s hotel from the age of 21.
Milton also says compared to seeing the industry from the police side it is interesting to see it from an operator’s view.
‘‘We meet some really cool people and some are a bit challenging, but the hospitality sector is about hospitality and service, so no matter what you really think you need to be very careful because people are very quick to complain on Trip Advisor.
‘‘It is a bit frustrating when someone rubbishes you in such a public way instead of bringing it to the attention of the manager or wait staff at the time, particularly when it is usually something small that could easily be fixed,’’ he says.
‘‘I would rather fix it there and then if someone has an issue with a meal rather than read about it, but I guess that is the power of social media and some people hide behind it, so we just need to try and make sure every customer has a great experience.’’
Milton says he spends most of his time working in the wine bar because he loves encouraging people to try different varieties.
‘‘Many people have strong preference for a particular variety but some also have quite strong regional preferences too,’’ he says. ‘‘They ask for a Central Otago Pinot so I give them two tastings and ask them to pick which is Nelson and which is from Central, very rarely do they get it right and they have a huge respect for the fact I have helped them take their blinkers off.’’
Upstairs in the wine bar at Bacco they have an enomatic machine to keep wines fresh and vibrant, this is an Italian wine dispensing system that can be set to pour different size servings of wine and then replace the poured wine with an inert gas so it doesn’t oxidise. This means not only does it reduce waste but Milton can have more expensive wine available by the glass.
‘‘At the cellar door and restaurant last year, we threw out a lot of wine every three of four days, with often only a glass out of it and I worked out that the machine would actually pay for itself in 24 months, especially during winter.
Bacco also has tasting platters specifically designed to match different varietals and they give you a wine/food match sheet.
‘‘It is something many people don’t really think about so by us serving wine and food like this they start to understand more about why wine and food should really be consumed together.’’
Something else that sets Bacco apart from other cafes in the region is the fact they have an off-licence, so if you taste a wine you like then you can buy some from the on-site cellar door to take home with you.
Milton says the idea was to set up an inner-city cellar door outlet because a lot of tourists don’t get a chance to get out to the wineries.
‘‘They are only here for a couple of days so I wanted to give them the chance to go to a cellar door, the only difference being it is just in the centre of town.’’
Restaurants aren’t allowed to have an off-licence and this created a challenge to get around, so he set up a separate entity upstairs and runs two licences. Onlicence for the restaurant downstairs and an On and off-licence with tasting room upstairs.
‘‘Nelson City Council was fantastic, they really tried to make it happen and together we found a way to make it happen,’’ Milton says. ‘‘I think they saw the value in what I was trying to add to the tourism sector in the city.
‘‘Since I got the off-licence at beginning of July I have sold more wine than I did all of last winter, but it isn’t just takeaway wines, people have started to realise we are a wine bar and the atmosphere means it is a great place to relax.’’
Milton also sells more than just his own wines by the glass at the wine bar, you will find Champagne, a good range of local premium wines, wines from most other regions in New Zealand as well as imported wines, some of which he imports and distributes throughout New Zealand.
He has also set up a wine club that you can join for free and get invitations to special events, including degustation dinners where you get six courses of delicious food paired with six wines, the last one featured Elephant Hill from Hawke’s Bay and the next one is Pegasus Bay from Waipara.
All you have to do to find out more is sign up to their wine club at the front counter, registering online, or send Terry an email at info@milcrestestate.co.nz or dine@baccorestaurant.co.nz