World Wine Winners at Bella Venezia
From a wine list that used to fit on a laminated card to being named the best specialist wine list in the southern hemisphere. Words by John Caruso.
When Todd Young, the restaurateur behind Bella Venezia’s multi award-winning wine list, started at the Mooloolaba restaurant as a manager in the early 2000s, the drinks were listed on a small laminated card. He remembers looking at it and thinking they could probably do better. He wasn’t wrong.
After he and wife Krissy bought the venue, Todd has implemented a wine program that runs to 675 labels and more than fifty wines by the glass. Through passion, persistence and a quest for perfection, he has steered Bella Venezia to be recognised amongst the best in the world, named winner of Best Specialist Wine List for Australasia at the World’s Best Wine List Awards in London this year.
It’s not the first time and probably won’t be the last. The restaurant would have to be the most awarded venue in the region, if not Australia. For Todd, that is credit to the whole team and recognition for the Sunshine Coast. Bella Venezia has been part of Mooloolaba for forty-three years, most of it as a family pizza and pasta restaurant, and Todd is quick to point out that side of the business hasn’t gone anywhere. Families still fill tables on a Friday night to share a freshly-made pizza. What’s changed is who’s sitting
a few tables over.
“We might have one table sharing pizzas and beers, and another table spending five or six hundred dollars a head with matching wines,” he says.
Same room, same night, wildly different evenings, and the wine list must work for both. Getting there wasn’t simple.
“There really is no substitute for practical experience and I’ve had more than 20 years in hospitality and working with wine,” he says. “I’ve worked alongside amazing sommeliers whose knowledge, passion and different perspectives have been incredibly valuable. They have all played a part in helping craft the wine list.
“Relationships are important as well. Over many years you build connections with winemakers, distributors, importers, collectors and people throughout the industry, and sometimes those relationships give us access to wines that aren’t easy to find.
The best education, he believes, happens in the vineyards of France and Italy, standing in the dirt with the growers. And of course there is a lot of tasting and research.
“There is only so much you can learn from a book,” he says. Given that the list’s backbone runs through Piedmont and Tuscany, with serious depth in Champagne, Burgundy and Bordeaux, that time in the field wasn’t wasted.
Building a list this deep on the Sunshine Coast, without the underground cellar and six-figure budget of a big-city institution, calls for a bit of ingenuity. Todd found it in the Coravin system, which allows Bella Venezia to pour a glass without pulling the cork, so a guest can order a $160 glass of Barolo or Amarone without committing to the bottle, and the restaurant isn’t left holding stock that spoils before anyone orders it. The addition of Fish House Steak & Grill has allowed both venues to bring extra depth to their respective lists.
Not that the job doesn’t come without the odd heart-in-mouth moment. Todd recently picked up a six-bottle case for the private cellar and did the maths on what he was carrying before he’d even got it to the car.
“Conservatively over ten thousand dollars,” he says, and he carried it across the car park like dynamite about to go off in his hands. Nothing dropped. His blood pressure may not have fully recovered.
The list gets reprinted roughly every fortnight, which sounds excessive until Todd explains why. He’s buying constantly often single bottles at private auction, rare vintages that might sell within a week of going on the list. Getting the vintage right matters too, because the same wine can taste like a different drink from one year to the next, and guests who know their Barolo will notice if the list doesn’t. It’s less a menu than a document that never rests. The wine program ensures the team of sommeliers and waiters all are versed in what’s on offer.
“A great wine list is only one part of it. You need people who understand the wines, know how to present and serve them properly, and most importantly know how to help guests enjoy them,”
he says. “The kitchen has to create food that gives the wine program relevance and then the people behind the scenes making sure wines are received, catalogued, stored and served correctly.
“My role is really to help set the standard and direction; the team brings it to life every service.”
What makes it work, Todd insists, is that none of it is built to impress judges.
“The philosophy has never been about simply having a huge number of wines. I want the list to have purpose and personality. It’s built for the guest, not for awards, as great as they are to receive,” he says, admitting that he gets a thrill when someone orders one of the rare bottles he has secured. There’s genuine reach at the top end, five-figure Burgundys and old-vintage Champagne for guests who travel specifically for that kind of cellar, but just as much thought has gone into the eighty-dollar bottles that make up most of what gets poured on a Friday night.
Todd’s favourite part of the job isn’t the trophy wines or the wine immersions they run regularly – it’s watching guests he remembers as kids, sitting with their own families now, ordering a proper bottle instead of the soft drink they’d have had a decade or two back.
“For me, hospitality is about so much more than putting great food and wine on a table. It’s about the whole environment – the design, atmosphere, service, lighting, music, the energy of the room and the way the team interacts with guests,” he says.
“Beyond the wine itself, I am most passionate about creating beautiful venues that feel world class and provide amazing experiences,” he says. “To deliver an experience that people remember long after they leave.”
Based on the number of awards and loyal clientele, I’d say he’s managed to uncork the secret to that success.
