Fountainhead Winehouse opens in Newstead
By late January, it will carry 1200 cuvees, from $25 quaffers to $5000 wallet busters. Take a look inside this creative Newstead new product.
Imagine the noise room of your dreams, but filled with wine. That’s essentially the atmosphere of Fountainhead Winehouse, which opened in a basement on Doggett Street in Newstead earlier this month.
Such establishments are like gold dust, with an aspect of discovery in unusual places, which makes you wonder whether Dan Wilson and his business partner Chris Banham, who only opened LPO Wine with Matt Okine in June, were motivated by a bit of opportunism to open this amazing wine shop and bar.
But it actually took years to build.
“Dan and I have wanted to do something together for a long time,” says Banham. “Originally it was a pizza shop, but once Dan opened the LPO and got a better understanding of what the people of Brisbane wanted, the type of space and some of the services we wanted to offer, [Fountainhead] It fits perfectly with how Dan interacts with people, builds a community, and all those great things you see at LPO.
“Just finding the space, it went from idea to reality pretty quickly.”
It will take some faith to find the space for yourself; The 54 Doggett Street commercial block under which it is located is equally unknown. But when you walk down the parking ramp to the left of the building, there it is: a dimly lit basement that Wilson and Banham and a small team of collaborators have handled with a light but intriguing touch.
There are works by Miguel Aquilizan and Jess Dorizac, textiles by George Park, and furniture by George Greathead. Julia Cox of jcHQ was in charge of the overall design, with Jack Hamilton handling the carpentry.
It feels thrown together, but it only takes a moment to realize that’s intentional rather than accidental.
“We wanted the space to feel like a friend’s living room,” says Banham. “Maybe you’re a little jealous of their design, but you’re very comfortable being there. It needs to feel warm and inviting.
“It was really an improvisational process of trying things out, seeing what worked, what we could do ourselves, what we could afford, and then meeting a lot of the manufacturers from Brisbane… meeting people who really put a generous amount of time and effort into this concept. We were really lucky for that.”
Of course, you’re here for the wine, whether to drink or to take away.
Fountainhead has about 800 tubs in stock — “I think we’ll have between 1,000 and 1,200 by the middle of next week,” Wilson says — with somewhere between 350 and 400 currently on shelves.
“Of course we want to put as much local stuff on the shelves as possible, but the wines are of course expressed through the landscape, the grapes and the winemaker, and that means having a good international subset,” says Wilson. “You’ll never find a wine that smells like the wine produced in Australia, the north-west of Italy, or around Alba and Barolo. These aromatics and textural quality are indicative of that special landscape.”
Nearly every price point is covered, with sales at Fountainhead ranging from as low as $25 to $5,000 cellar bottles from Burgundy producer Domaine de la Romanée-Conti, considered among the most expensive in the world.
Other examples Wilson shouts out include A&C Ainsworth’s Rosé of Cabernet from the Macedon Ranges; Serragghia di Gabrio & Giotto zibibbo produced by legendary winemaker Gabrio Bini; and the grenade-wielding Bruno Duchene La Luna Rouge from Roussillon in the south of France.
“Wine can be so tightly controlled,” says Banham, “that the price of a coveted wine in a store may not reflect its rarity. Dan is responsible for pricing and does not do that.”
“Whether you buy a $200 bottle or a $25 bottle, you can still come to a venue like this and enjoy something at a reasonable price,” Wilson adds. “A big part of this is about the feel of the room, the design elements and the concept – making sure people feel comfortable and not excluded from the experience.”
Open Wed-Sun 11:00-22:00
Matt Shea is Food and Culture Editor at the Brisbane Times. He is a former editor and editor-in-chief at Broadsheet Brisbane and has written for Escape, Qantas Magazine, Guardian, Jetstar Magazine and SilverKris, among others.
