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 ♪
00:31♪ Tell me what you're running from ♪
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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