Restaurants: Dear Sainte Éloise, Sydney, with three nice wines
Website: https://www.lovetillygroup.com/dear-sainte-eloise
After an afternoon walking around Sydney, I popped into Dear Saint Éloise, which is a wine-focused casual restaurant in Potts Point. The space is really relaxed, and I walked in without a booking and sat at the bar.
The wine list is quite brilliant, with a focus on low-intervention wines, although I wouldn’t say this is a ‘natural’ list, even though a lot of wines fall into the natural bracket. And I really like that it’s got strong Australian representation, as well as European. I couldn’t stretch to a bottle, but I did order three wines by the glass, all Australian, and all interesting.
And the food is excellent. All three dishes I ordered were beautifully presented, and also had great flavour.
Fleet Lichen Pinot Noir 2025 Gippsland, Australia
Gippsland is a really interesting Victorian subregion with a cool climate. This Pinot Noir comes from Leongatha in South Gippsland, with deep clay loams rich in basalt. The vineyard was planted in 1990 on its own roots, and the clones are 115, D5V12 and 777. This is bright and tart with lovely sleek cherry fruit. Refreshing with some brisk acid holding things together. Lovely juicy energy and purity here. I love the vibrancy and depth of flavour. 93/100
Domaine Simha Sanskrit Gamay 2025 Tasmania, Australia
12% alcohol. From the Derwent Valley in Tasmania, this is from a single vineyard. Whole bunch wild ferment, traditional pigeage, matured for 6 months in a seasoned demi muid. Basket pressed, then bottled unfined and unfiltered. This is delicious. Sappy and bright with a nice green edge to the fluid, silky berry fruits. Such purity and poise. There’s also a bit of chalky structure here. Beautiful Gamay. 94/100
Sabi Wabi Nomu Syrah 2025 Hunter Valley, Australia
This is made from two parcels in Pokolbin. One was direct pressed and fermented in a used barrel. The other was whole berry fermented, then pressed to stainless steel. The fact that one parcel was fermented off the skins makes a lighter red with low tannin. Designed to be served chilled this has lovely texture with soft tannins, and sweet cherry and strawberry fruit. It’s deliciously ripe and smooth but there’s still just a hint of peppery detail. Lovely weight here. 92/100
