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Umi owner talks about creating his own wine and awards
Derry Journal
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09/10/2024
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.
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00:00
♪ Tell me what you're running from ♪
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♪ Tell me what you're running from ♪
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♪ Tell me what you're running from ♪
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♪ Tell me what you're running from ♪
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♪ Tell me what you're running from ♪
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♪ Tell me what you're running from ♪
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♪ Tell me what you're running from ♪
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♪ Tell me what you're running from ♪
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♪ Tell me what you're running from ♪
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♪ Tell me what you're running from ♪
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♪ Hiding, he's far behind ♪
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♪ When you are, you're so far behind ♪
00:54
So, we'll start very simple. Could you introduce yourself, please?
00:57
Hi, my name is Sean Affordy. I'm the owner of Umi Restaurant in Derry.
01:01
Nice. And can you tell me what we're here talking about today?
01:04
Well, it's on the table, so...
01:06
Yeah, so, obviously we're talking about Rainbow Pie,
01:08
which is our own brand of wine which we've made
01:11
and imported ourselves from Austria.
01:14
It's just arrived, so it has.
01:17
And we're very pleased with how it's turned out.
01:21
Obviously, it's a whole collaboration of Derry people making a wine.
01:27
It's obviously selling solely for this restaurant.
01:31
Obviously, it was Jack McAteer,
01:35
a guy who was my assistant manager when we first opened up Umi.
01:39
He's been a wine grower. He's grown wine all over the world.
01:43
And then he had to go back to doing what he does best, which is growing wine.
01:47
And then I got a phone call with the opportunity that we could have our own wine.
01:52
And, of course, it's going to take that opportunity.
01:55
And then, so this has been like a year in the work of getting it from,
02:00
like, obviously from the vineyard straight to here, bottling, importing.
02:06
But, yeah, and also the label, the design of it was done by hand.
02:12
Wow.
02:13
Hand clothing.
02:14
So we've kind of done this whole collaboration of Derry people.
02:18
It's a wine from Austria, but it's made by...
02:20
A wee community.
02:21
A community of Derry people.
02:23
They get it here, and now it's obviously solely distributed out of the restaurant.
02:29
So it is quite unique.
02:30
That's lovely.
02:32
Obviously, sitting there now, you know, it's been a long time to get it here.
02:35
What kind of feelings are you seeing?
02:36
Just even seeing it there or seeing it on the shelves?
02:40
It's almost like on par of, like, running the restaurant.
02:43
That's how important it was or how good it felt.
02:48
Especially because of the timing of how long it took.
02:52
You know, obviously having to be silent about it until it was almost finished
02:56
because it had to ferment and age in the wine barrel for nine months.
03:01
And then once the finished product, and then we got to taste it,
03:04
and we're like, right, we can let everyone know now that we've got our own wine in the works
03:07
because it was one of those things that was up in the air.
03:09
We don't know if this is going to work.
03:11
You know, how is the wine going to turn out?
03:13
But then once we got the early stages, we could actually try it.
03:17
And then we were just over the moon with how it was tasting.
03:19
We're like, right, we are really onto something here, you know.
03:23
And then also, once we, like, when it came to the stage where the wine had to come out of the barrel
03:29
after its aging process was up,
03:33
we, myself, my partner Gary, and our manager Tim, we flew out to Austria
03:39
and did the whole bottling process from extracting the wine out of the barrel.
03:47
It's a whole process.
03:49
It's not easy, Dom.
03:50
It's not easy, Dom.
03:51
And trust me, making wine is hard work.
03:54
Like, labour intensive.
03:56
A labour of love, would you say?
03:57
A labour of love, absolutely.
03:58
Because, you know, it's a special thing, obviously, when you know it's yours.
04:01
It's not just, you're making some wine for whoever.
04:03
It's just like, this is yours, and you're doing all the work.
04:06
And it's, we're the first restaurant in Derry to ever have blown wine.
04:11
Hence, maybe one of our person in Northern Ireland might have it.
04:15
I think that's Michael Dean.
04:17
But obviously, this is obviously a unique one as well, as it's a natural wine.
04:21
As natural wines are just kind of like this new craze of, like, low-intervention wines
04:26
who are spontaneously fermented, as they say,
04:29
which has very little chemicals and sulphites in it,
04:32
which gives it that, which makes it a natural wine.
04:35
And it's also, like, natural wines are better for hangovers, by the way.
04:40
Obviously, they don't have sulphites in them.
04:42
That's the theory of it.
04:44
But, yeah, it was obviously doing the whole, us flying over there,
04:49
going to the vineyard, seeing the grapes for the first time,
04:52
where it's been made, the wine house.
04:56
Jack works, he's the head wine grower for the Martin Duvald.
05:01
That's the wine house where the wine gets made, obviously.
05:09
And then, yeah, just the whole bottling process, designing the label,
05:13
what we're going to call it.
05:15
So Jack obviously came up with the name Rainbow Pie,
05:17
listening to a Beatles song, and he's like, I like this.
05:21
It kind of just stuck, really.
05:24
Yeah, and then, obviously, we've got it all bottled up.
05:28
And our additional feature to it is the wax dipping.
05:33
So these are all wax dipped by hand.
05:35
By hand?
05:36
By hand.
05:37
Wow.
05:38
Yeah.
05:39
It's quite a process, too.
05:42
Basically, when you're bottling them all, wax dipping it, it's...
05:46
So would you say it has its own wee individual story?
05:49
It has its own wee individual story, absolutely.
05:51
And it has that, also, that personal touch from us.
05:55
Is that important to you?
05:56
Yeah, like that.
05:58
It just adds that love you've gave to it, really.
06:03
We've put a lot into it.
06:05
And then, also, when it came to the stage,
06:07
we needed to get this wine from Austria over to Derry.
06:11
And then, because we were getting it straight from the source,
06:14
we are the importers.
06:16
And then we had to face a mountain of challenges.
06:19
Obviously, with Brexit now, I think, and import taxes,
06:24
and all these things, I never...
06:27
I always think that we all take for granted, really.
06:30
But, yeah, it was in transit for about two months.
06:33
So, obviously, I was letting everyone know it's coming now, next weekend.
06:37
I was doing it in Armagh, but, you know, it's here now.
06:50
Last one.
06:54
Final.
06:57
Final.
07:21
Right, so, what's the reception been to the wine in the restaurant so far?
07:25
Like, people have been absolutely loving it.
07:27
There's been a lot of people that have been waiting a long time as well,
07:30
same as ourselves, to get their hands on it.
07:32
Some people came in and bought, like, three bottles.
07:35
Also, it's one of those things.
07:37
There is a very limited amount.
07:39
I think we got in 300 bottles.
07:41
So, it was a small batch, because it was also, like, a first trial,
07:45
a first taste of water.
07:47
And it has kind of been flying off the shelves, really.
07:49
And only just this week, Jack, the winemaker, has done the 24 harvest of grapes.
07:56
So, they're now being processed, and then they're soon to be going into the barrel.
08:00
So, more's coming?
08:01
More's coming. More's coming.
08:03
The volume has doubled, and another thing that we've been working on,
08:09
silently again, is our own white wine.
08:13
Wow.
08:14
So, we have our own white wine, and hopefully that will be making its way
08:18
over here in the next two to three months.
08:20
Wow.
08:21
And so, also, like, the red wine, the grape is called Blau Frankisch,
08:26
which is a native grape to that region in Austria.
08:30
So, it is quite unique to, obviously, your commercial, say, red wine.
08:36
So, Malbex, and Cab Sauvignon, Merlot, et cetera.
08:42
So, this is Blau Frankisch.
08:44
It's quite, like, along the lines of a stronger Pinot Noir.
08:48
It's quite fruity.
08:51
It's got, like, nice bits of, like, citrus running through it.
08:55
It's lovely. It's really well-balanced.
08:57
It's a lovely wine.
08:58
But it is, to me, just being biased, it kind of is.
09:01
How is the wine worth of food?
09:02
Like, what would you pair with an item in this restaurant?
09:05
I know that, I mean, it changes quite often.
09:07
Yeah.
09:08
So, how would your particular wine pair with the food that you're serving?
09:13
Well, obviously, because our menu in here is so diverse.
09:16
We have, like, often sushi, which is a way of raw fish,
09:20
but we also have a lot of, like, steaks that are barbecued.
09:27
So, there is this mix of, like, two different kind of worlds.
09:31
And, obviously, like, it is a red wine.
09:33
It is, along with your meats, it would be more preferred to go along with that.
09:39
Another thing in here, like, our white wine sales are double what our red wine sales are.
09:44
So, we have to get a white wine coming.
09:46
And then, we've been working slightly on that,
09:48
but it's not so silent anymore, since you don't know.
09:53
So, yeah, because we are very fish-orientated, in a sense, as well, with, obviously, sushi.
10:00
Yeah, we have a red and a white for the best of both worlds now.
10:04
Personally, are you a red wine or a white wine?
10:07
I'm a white wine. I'm a white wine, but I love wine in general.
10:14
White wine can be my go-to, but it depends what I'm eating.
10:19
At the same time, if I'm in a restaurant on a holiday, I'll go in a restaurant.
10:24
You've kind of already said good things about it, but I kind of want to go back to wee bit.
10:29
What's a few wee facts you can tell me about, for lack of a better word, white nerds out there?
10:34
You know, people are very into their wine.
10:36
Quick wee few facts you can raffle about the red wine.
10:41
Well, it's a natural red wine, which is very—
10:45
well, it's not so common in the wine world.
10:48
It is a very niche market that is kind of becoming more mainstream now.
10:54
The grape itself, obviously, like I said, it's Blaeu Francus.
10:57
It's quite a unique grape. It's not a very popular grape.
11:01
If you're looking for a very unique wine, we have got one here in a bottle,
11:06
which has a cool story to it, also, with the whole process of what it is.
11:12
You can't buy this wine anywhere else in the world.
11:15
It's solely produced for here.
11:17
Also, it has our name on it, so you're not going to get this anywhere else.
11:21
The grape is Blaeu Francus.
11:24
It's low-intervention, spontaneously fermented.
11:28
And it's really well-balanced as well, at the same time,
11:32
with, obviously, the fruity notes, citrus notes.
11:36
And it's just really smooth.
11:39
A lot of people, even if you're not a big wine person—
11:42
we've had people that were, like, a non-wine head, for example.
11:47
They've had it, and they're like, it's just so easy to drink.
11:50
So, no, we're very, very happy with it.
11:53
Class.
11:54
Another thing I want to hear you talk about today is awards.
11:57
We may as well afford more awards.
11:59
You've already won awards in the past.
12:01
Can you tell me about the awards you're up for at the moment?
12:03
So, we've just found out on Friday, just past it,
12:07
we're nominated for two awards by the Food and Wine Association of Ireland magazine.
12:13
So, we've been nominated for Best Casual Dining in Ulster.
12:18
And then we've also been nominated for Best Customer Service in all of Ireland.
12:23
All of Ireland?
12:24
All of Ireland.
12:25
So, obviously, they do regional awards—Ulster, Connaught, Ulster, Ulster.
12:31
But, yeah, we've got—so, for Best Customer Service overall Ireland,
12:35
we've been selected for that category, and that's massive in my eyes.
12:42
And also, Food and Wine magazine, that is very prestigious.
12:45
It's done by—it's not funded by the public, like some other awards are.
12:50
So, it's like if you're a popular person, you're going to win again.
12:53
You know, this is a—
12:54
This is purely about the food, isn't it?
12:55
This is a select judge, you know, that's selecting these awards.
12:59
So, yeah, that's—there's a lot of—
13:02
You can be nominated then. It's kind of a big deal, isn't it?
13:05
Oh, yeah, absolutely.
13:06
Being nominated's a big deal.
13:07
If you won, that's massive.
13:10
So, no, we're very pleased with that.
13:12
So, we've got a trip to Dublin on the 10th of November,
13:15
same day as the Derry final.
13:17
Yeah, in the Shelburne.
13:19
I can't believe how that worked out.
13:20
I know, in the Shelburne, I was like,
13:21
oh, I don't know if I'll be going to the Viva in a suit, but, you know.
13:25
Yeah, we're really excited for that.
13:27
So, Greg.
13:31
So fruity.
13:33
Also, a bit of citrus smell running through it as well.
13:35
Really well-balanced.
13:38
Good bit of body to it.
13:40
Lovely wine.
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