Umi owner talks about creating his own wine and awards

Derry Journal

Umi restaurant owner, Sean Lafferty, talks on the journey of creating his own wine, Rainbow Pie.  Umi is also nominated for two awards in the Food and Wine magazine.

Transcript

00:00♪ Tell me what you're running from ♪

00:04♪ Tell me what you're running from ♪

00:07♪ Tell me what you're running from ♪

00:11♪ Tell me what you're running from ♪

00:15♪ Tell me what you're running from ♪

00:19♪ Tell me what you're running from ♪

00:23♪ Tell me what you're running from ♪

00:27♪ Tell me what you're running from ♪

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00:35♪ Tell me what you're running from ♪

00:39♪ Hiding, he's far behind ♪

00:45♪ When you are, you're so far behind ♪

00:54So, we'll start very simple. Could you introduce yourself, please?

00:57Hi, my name is Sean Affordy. I'm the owner of Umi Restaurant in Derry.

01:01Nice. And can you tell me what we're here talking about today?

01:04Well, it's on the table, so...

01:06Yeah, so, obviously we're talking about Rainbow Pie,

01:08which is our own brand of wine which we've made

01:11and imported ourselves from Austria.

01:14It's just arrived, so it has.

01:17And we're very pleased with how it's turned out.

01:21Obviously, it's a whole collaboration of Derry people making a wine.

01:27It's obviously selling solely for this restaurant.

01:31Obviously, it was Jack McAteer,

01:35a guy who was my assistant manager when we first opened up Umi.

01:39He's been a wine grower. He's grown wine all over the world.

01:43And then he had to go back to doing what he does best, which is growing wine.

01:47And then I got a phone call with the opportunity that we could have our own wine.

01:52And, of course, it's going to take that opportunity.

01:55And then, so this has been like a year in the work of getting it from,

02:00like, obviously from the vineyard straight to here, bottling, importing.

02:06But, yeah, and also the label, the design of it was done by hand.

02:12Wow.

02:13Hand clothing.

02:14So we've kind of done this whole collaboration of Derry people.

02:18It's a wine from Austria, but it's made by...

02:20A wee community.

02:21A community of Derry people.

02:23They get it here, and now it's obviously solely distributed out of the restaurant.

02:29So it is quite unique.

02:30That's lovely.

02:32Obviously, sitting there now, you know, it's been a long time to get it here.

02:35What kind of feelings are you seeing?

02:36Just even seeing it there or seeing it on the shelves?

02:40It's almost like on par of, like, running the restaurant.

02:43That's how important it was or how good it felt.

02:48Especially because of the timing of how long it took.

02:52You know, obviously having to be silent about it until it was almost finished

02:56because it had to ferment and age in the wine barrel for nine months.

03:01And then once the finished product, and then we got to taste it,

03:04and we're like, right, we can let everyone know now that we've got our own wine in the works

03:07because it was one of those things that was up in the air.

03:09We don't know if this is going to work.

03:11You know, how is the wine going to turn out?

03:13But then once we got the early stages, we could actually try it.

03:17And then we were just over the moon with how it was tasting.

03:19We're like, right, we are really onto something here, you know.

03:23And then also, once we, like, when it came to the stage where the wine had to come out of the barrel

03:29after its aging process was up,

03:33we, myself, my partner Gary, and our manager Tim, we flew out to Austria

03:39and did the whole bottling process from extracting the wine out of the barrel.

03:47It's a whole process.

03:49It's not easy, Dom.

03:50It's not easy, Dom.

03:51And trust me, making wine is hard work.

03:54Like, labour intensive.

03:56A labour of love, would you say?

03:57A labour of love, absolutely.

03:58Because, you know, it's a special thing, obviously, when you know it's yours.

04:01It's not just, you're making some wine for whoever.

04:03It's just like, this is yours, and you're doing all the work.

04:06And it's, we're the first restaurant in Derry to ever have blown wine.

04:11Hence, maybe one of our person in Northern Ireland might have it.

04:15I think that's Michael Dean.

04:17But obviously, this is obviously a unique one as well, as it's a natural wine.

04:21As natural wines are just kind of like this new craze of, like, low-intervention wines

04:26who are spontaneously fermented, as they say,

04:29which has very little chemicals and sulphites in it,

04:32which gives it that, which makes it a natural wine.

04:35And it's also, like, natural wines are better for hangovers, by the way.

04:40Obviously, they don't have sulphites in them.

04:42That's the theory of it.

04:44But, yeah, it was obviously doing the whole, us flying over there,

04:49going to the vineyard, seeing the grapes for the first time,

04:52where it's been made, the wine house.

04:56Jack works, he's the head wine grower for the Martin Duvald.

05:01That's the wine house where the wine gets made, obviously.

05:09And then, yeah, just the whole bottling process, designing the label,

05:13what we're going to call it.

05:15So Jack obviously came up with the name Rainbow Pie,

05:17listening to a Beatles song, and he's like, I like this.

05:21It kind of just stuck, really.

05:24Yeah, and then, obviously, we've got it all bottled up.

05:28And our additional feature to it is the wax dipping.

05:33So these are all wax dipped by hand.

05:35By hand?

05:36By hand.

05:37Wow.

05:38Yeah.

05:39It's quite a process, too.

05:42Basically, when you're bottling them all, wax dipping it, it's...

05:46So would you say it has its own wee individual story?

05:49It has its own wee individual story, absolutely.

05:51And it has that, also, that personal touch from us.

05:55Is that important to you?

05:56Yeah, like that.

05:58It just adds that love you've gave to it, really.

06:03We've put a lot into it.

06:05And then, also, when it came to the stage,

06:07we needed to get this wine from Austria over to Derry.

06:11And then, because we were getting it straight from the source,

06:14we are the importers.

06:16And then we had to face a mountain of challenges.

06:19Obviously, with Brexit now, I think, and import taxes,

06:24and all these things, I never...

06:27I always think that we all take for granted, really.

06:30But, yeah, it was in transit for about two months.

06:33So, obviously, I was letting everyone know it's coming now, next weekend.

06:37I was doing it in Armagh, but, you know, it's here now.

06:50Last one.

06:54Final.

06:57Final.

07:21Right, so, what's the reception been to the wine in the restaurant so far?

07:25Like, people have been absolutely loving it.

07:27There's been a lot of people that have been waiting a long time as well,

07:30same as ourselves, to get their hands on it.

07:32Some people came in and bought, like, three bottles.

07:35Also, it's one of those things.

07:37There is a very limited amount.

07:39I think we got in 300 bottles.

07:41So, it was a small batch, because it was also, like, a first trial,

07:45a first taste of water.

07:47And it has kind of been flying off the shelves, really.

07:49And only just this week, Jack, the winemaker, has done the 24 harvest of grapes.

07:56So, they're now being processed, and then they're soon to be going into the barrel.

08:00So, more's coming?

08:01More's coming. More's coming.

08:03The volume has doubled, and another thing that we've been working on,

08:09silently again, is our own white wine.

08:13Wow.

08:14So, we have our own white wine, and hopefully that will be making its way

08:18over here in the next two to three months.

08:20Wow.

08:21And so, also, like, the red wine, the grape is called Blau Frankisch,

08:26which is a native grape to that region in Austria.

08:30So, it is quite unique to, obviously, your commercial, say, red wine.

08:36So, Malbex, and Cab Sauvignon, Merlot, et cetera.

08:42So, this is Blau Frankisch.

08:44It's quite, like, along the lines of a stronger Pinot Noir.

08:48It's quite fruity.

08:51It's got, like, nice bits of, like, citrus running through it.

08:55It's lovely. It's really well-balanced.

08:57It's a lovely wine.

08:58But it is, to me, just being biased, it kind of is.

09:01How is the wine worth of food?

09:02Like, what would you pair with an item in this restaurant?

09:05I know that, I mean, it changes quite often.

09:07Yeah.

09:08So, how would your particular wine pair with the food that you're serving?

09:13Well, obviously, because our menu in here is so diverse.

09:16We have, like, often sushi, which is a way of raw fish,

09:20but we also have a lot of, like, steaks that are barbecued.

09:27So, there is this mix of, like, two different kind of worlds.

09:31And, obviously, like, it is a red wine.

09:33It is, along with your meats, it would be more preferred to go along with that.

09:39Another thing in here, like, our white wine sales are double what our red wine sales are.

09:44So, we have to get a white wine coming.

09:46And then, we've been working slightly on that,

09:48but it's not so silent anymore, since you don't know.

09:53So, yeah, because we are very fish-orientated, in a sense, as well, with, obviously, sushi.

10:00Yeah, we have a red and a white for the best of both worlds now.

10:04Personally, are you a red wine or a white wine?

10:07I'm a white wine. I'm a white wine, but I love wine in general.

10:14White wine can be my go-to, but it depends what I'm eating.

10:19At the same time, if I'm in a restaurant on a holiday, I'll go in a restaurant.

10:24You've kind of already said good things about it, but I kind of want to go back to wee bit.

10:29What's a few wee facts you can tell me about, for lack of a better word, white nerds out there?

10:34You know, people are very into their wine.

10:36Quick wee few facts you can raffle about the red wine.

10:41Well, it's a natural red wine, which is very—

10:45well, it's not so common in the wine world.

10:48It is a very niche market that is kind of becoming more mainstream now.

10:54The grape itself, obviously, like I said, it's Blaeu Francus.

10:57It's quite a unique grape. It's not a very popular grape.

11:01If you're looking for a very unique wine, we have got one here in a bottle,

11:06which has a cool story to it, also, with the whole process of what it is.

11:12You can't buy this wine anywhere else in the world.

11:15It's solely produced for here.

11:17Also, it has our name on it, so you're not going to get this anywhere else.

11:21The grape is Blaeu Francus.

11:24It's low-intervention, spontaneously fermented.

11:28And it's really well-balanced as well, at the same time,

11:32with, obviously, the fruity notes, citrus notes.

11:36And it's just really smooth.

11:39A lot of people, even if you're not a big wine person—

11:42we've had people that were, like, a non-wine head, for example.

11:47They've had it, and they're like, it's just so easy to drink.

11:50So, no, we're very, very happy with it.

11:53Class.

11:54Another thing I want to hear you talk about today is awards.

11:57We may as well afford more awards.

11:59You've already won awards in the past.

12:01Can you tell me about the awards you're up for at the moment?

12:03So, we've just found out on Friday, just past it,

12:07we're nominated for two awards by the Food and Wine Association of Ireland magazine.

12:13So, we've been nominated for Best Casual Dining in Ulster.

12:18And then we've also been nominated for Best Customer Service in all of Ireland.

12:23All of Ireland?

12:24All of Ireland.

12:25So, obviously, they do regional awards—Ulster, Connaught, Ulster, Ulster.

12:31But, yeah, we've got—so, for Best Customer Service overall Ireland,

12:35we've been selected for that category, and that's massive in my eyes.

12:42And also, Food and Wine magazine, that is very prestigious.

12:45It's done by—it's not funded by the public, like some other awards are.

12:50So, it's like if you're a popular person, you're going to win again.

12:53You know, this is a—

12:54This is purely about the food, isn't it?

12:55This is a select judge, you know, that's selecting these awards.

12:59So, yeah, that's—there's a lot of—

13:02You can be nominated then. It's kind of a big deal, isn't it?

13:05Oh, yeah, absolutely.

13:06Being nominated's a big deal.

13:07If you won, that's massive.

13:10So, no, we're very pleased with that.

13:12So, we've got a trip to Dublin on the 10th of November,

13:15same day as the Derry final.

13:17Yeah, in the Shelburne.

13:19I can't believe how that worked out.

13:20I know, in the Shelburne, I was like,

13:21oh, I don't know if I'll be going to the Viva in a suit, but, you know.

13:25Yeah, we're really excited for that.

13:27So, Greg.

13:31So fruity.

13:33Also, a bit of citrus smell running through it as well.

13:35Really well-balanced.

13:38Good bit of body to it.

13:40Lovely wine.

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