Sydney waterfront restaurant Cirrus Dining wins Australia’s Wine List of the Year

Sommeliers Nick Hildebrandt and Polly Mackarel are much like treasure hunters, searching for that hidden wine gem, and now their restaurant Cirrus at Barangaroo has been awarded wine list of the year.

Sommeliers Nick Hildebrandt and Polly Mackarel at Cirrus Dining in Barangaroo, Sydney. Picture: Nikki Short

Sommeliers Nick Hildebrandt and Polly Mackarel are not that different to treasure hunters, ­although rather than an “Indiana Jones” persona dodging poison darts and crashing boulders they seek out rare cases of wine from a small Champagne producer or an impossible-to-get Burgundy red.

“It really is like that, 100 per cent, and a lot of these smaller wines come through smaller importers and you need to have ­relationships that are built up over many years so you can get those allocations – sometimes you just get allocated one bottle,” Hildebrandt says.

The pair always seem to dig in the right places for their treasure, and on Monday they were ­rewarded for their efforts, with their Sydney waterfront restaurant Cirrus Dining crowned Australia’s Wine List of the Year at the awards’ 30th anniversary ceremony at the Ovolo Hotel in Woolloomooloo.

Cirrus Dining also won Best Wine List NSW and Australia’s Best Restaurant Wine List – City.

Sitting in Barangaroo with views of the northern end of Darling Harbour to Pyrmont and Goat Island, Cirrus is the “seafood jewel” within the Bentley Restaurant Group, which also owns Yellow, a vegan restaurant in Potts Point, contemporary French bistro Monopole and the soon-to-be-opened King Clarence, influenced by the cuisine of China, South Korea, and Japan.

Hildebrandt, a sommelier, restaurateur and part-owner of Bentley, brought over Mackarel to Cirrus four years ago and she has since fashioned the seafood gem’s wine list to boast more than 1000 wines and – importantly – collected as well the highly trained staff to help diners navigate the ­almost phone-directory sized list when it lands on the table.

“Our wine lists always have a lot of depth,” Hildebrandt says.

“Wine lovers come to our ­restaurants and that’s one of the selling points, that is one of the things we have a reputation for and we invest heavily in wine.”  It’s a reputation that is increasingly being taken notice by the ­experts, diners and drinkers of great wine. Bentley Group won the Wine List of the Year for Bentley Restaurant and Bar in 2015.

Over the years Cirrus and its stablemate restaurants have built huge inventories of wine valued in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, and which the accounting profession would technically view as sunk costs.

Hildebrandt begs to differ. “We have a cellaring program, we buy wine and if it goes up in value we see it as an asset, not a liability,” he says. “And during the pandemic the price of wine and the price of ‘cult’ or collectors’ wine, and hard-to-get wine, has gone up tremendously. Burgundy and Rhone Valley, they have all gone up, ­because of inflation and demand.”

Mackarel says the wine list at Cirrus is structured to complement its seafood offerings, with a heavy emphasis on Australian and French wine. Running at more than 1000 wines on offer it was important for her that it be more than just a shopping list of wines but rather a “ripping read”.

“We do try to make it quite a nice read as well, for me when I go to a restaurant and enjoy looking at a wine list it is something I want to take my time over and for people to experience that. It is an ­experience as well as the food,” she says.

Mackarel’s favourites on her own wine list include some highly collectable and rare champagnes, such as Domaine Jacques Selosse, which she says Cirrus is incredibly lucky to have.

“All of his wines are about $1000 on the wine list and it is a bit like a ‘bucket list’ for wine lovers who have to have drunk a bottle of Jacques Selosse if you’re are ­serious about wine,” Hildebrandt says.

Other finalists for wine list of the year include Merivale’s Mr Wong in Sydney and Andrew McConnell’s Gimlet at Cavendish House in Melbourne.

New awards added to this year’s event included Australia’s best listing of Italian wines, which was awarded to Bistecca (NSW), Australia’s best listing of French wines received by Society (Victoria), Australia’s best cocktail list, which went to Sarino’s (NSW), and Australia’s best listing of US wines was given to SK Steak & Oyster (Queensland.