The Buyer | How Nekter Deli claims to be UK’s best New World new wave wine bar

Tell us about your new venture and branching out into hospitality for the first time?

We started Nekter Deli over the summer, soft launching initially the deli offering and now we are starting to lean into the wine offering.

We are a hybrid without compromise. That is to say we offer excellent products to people from 9am to 9pm spanning from coffee and pastries through to drink-in and plates at night, but each part is individually curated.

We have excellent coffee from Ozone and Xavier and have been trained up as baristas. In the evening we have a brilliant dine-in experience.

By 'we' I mean myself and Xavier Sockeel formely of Remedy Wine Bar & Restaurant.

Too many hybrids compromise in some way and I have found myself drinking £80 Pinot Noirs in the past hunched over a barrel surrounded by pork scratchings.

Where did the inspiration for Nekter Deli come from?

Two sides really...there isn't anywhere else in the UK which has a real focus and specialism in a New World new wave offering and I always thought that was a gap.

Then frustration with other high-end deli experiences, where the ethos seems to be to cram as many products on the shelves as you can. At Nekter Deli we work with a much smaller number of producers with the aim of specialising in their products and being able to really tell their story.

It's a curated approach rather than scatter gun.

In a nut-shell, what's your offering?

New World new wave wine list; curating a discrete and focused list of deli products; and creating dine-in plates which have a unique flavour profile.

For example right now one of our most poplar plates is Turmeric and Candied Fennel Seed Biscuits served with Chili Jam and St Jude’s Raw Cow’s Milk Cheese which we pair with an Australia skin contact Chenin from the Barossa.

People love the flavours, the stories, the experience.

How do you bring that to life?

By telling the story of the producers. It's not about us, it's about the people who make the amazing food and wines. Part of our commitment is to have all the producers come personally to the shop for sit-down tasting experiences with our customers.

Where else can you go in London and regularly meet the people who bake the bread, make the charcuterie, smoke the fish, brew the beer and ferment the wines?

Why are you drawn to the new wave and the New World when it comes to sourcing and listing wines?

I find the flavours and the style of the new wave more palatable. Higher acids, lower alcohol, brighter more subtle flavours. I think as well it is incumbent on us all to consider and prioritise sustainability and regenerative farming in our choices.

The New World is the area I know best, where I have set out my specialism. There are many brilliant wine offerings in London which encompass European wines and flavours, there are brilliant wine offerings which specialise in American or South African or South American wines.

The intersection of the new wave and the New World throws up a particularly interesting set of winemakers and wines and there is no place in London which has a bibliography of producers and flavours coming only from this fascinating part of the wine world.

You claim to have the best new wave, New World wine list - what makes you be so bold - talk us through what you mean?

It is the area I know best in wine. I have visited all the regions, I know the producers, the communities, the philosophies. I've been to the vineyards - I've helped make wine in each of those geographies. It's the core focus of what we've been doing at Nekter Wines for the last 10 years.

This makes it a key focus area for us to try and create a unique offering for the UK wine community.

Give us some examples of what you mean by new wave?

Essentially it's the idea of a modern interpretation of minimal intervention. Winemakers in the new world have a huge amount of freedom in how they can make wine. We have Palomino blends from South Africa, Aligote from Sonoma and Fiano from Australia on the shelves.

There has always been an element of minimal interventionist winemaking in the New world. The Judgement of Paris was essentially won by new wave wines, light bright wines which were food focussed. Lower alcohol and high acid.

Then ‘Parkerisation’ introduced a more heavy handed approach to winemaking, which has led to a general perception, certainly outside of the wine trade, that Australian, Californian and South African wines are very big and bold and heavy wines.

We embrace the winemakers who don't do that. We've got Ridge, Mayacamas, Corison and Arnot Roberts on our shelves. We have Eben Sadie wines from the early 2010s, Restless River from 2012 (the year they launched their brand releasing their first wines from 2008).

For people who like New World new wave, the idea is that we curate a cornucopia of treasures to cater to that palate and that style. No-one else does that.

As well as sourcing your own wine you are also working with other UK wine suppliers and importers - what criteria do you use when looking to list a wine that you have not sourced?

It's really just being part of that community. We know so many of the winemakers we work with so well, that we hear and see of winemakers coming through the ranks organically rather than having to go out and find them.

Who are you working with and why?

Roberson and Flint have some excellent US producers. Similarly Swig and Liberty have fantastic South African producers. Those two regions are the main focus for now. We are currently getting some of the older and more difficult to find wines from brokers, but eventually we will look to leverage connections we have with the winemakers themselves to access some really special library wines in the future.

Tell us about the deli aspect and the food offer you have?

We are working our ways towards an all UK based food offering. Working with smaller producers who are as close as possible (goegraphically) to us. We have Indian Biskut makers in Bow, fish smokers in London Fields, bakers in Hoxton, butchers in West London.

We work direct where we can so that we get to learn the stories of the producers and their personalities, but we also aren't afraid to go to top notch distributors like Neals Yard Dairy, or Ozone coffee to make sure we get the best products we can.

What food do you serve at Nekter Deli?

All sorts, but we have our own twist on it. We don't have a kitchen so we are limited in what we can prepare, but we are using that as a strength rather than a draw-back. We use the deli products to create unique plates and flavour combinations out of what we have on the shelves.

What do you mean unique plates out of items on the shelves, isn't that what all delis do?

To a degree. Certainly for the meat and cheese cuts. But we take it further, we use the experience we have of matching wines to the flavours and textures of tasting menus at places like The Clove Club or The Kitchen Table to create unique pairings out of everyday deli products. We literally use the products from the shelves when we make our plates, and this means people can recreate exactly the same dish at home.

Some of our favourite combos at the moment are:

Turmeric and candied fennel seed biscuits served with chili jam and St Jude’s raw cow’s milk cheese.
Duck liver mousse served with sour cherry biscuits.
N25 Oscietra caviar served with Torres truffle crisps and sour cream.

How have you gone out to find suppliers?

Again, it's network based. Small artisanal high end producers who really care about what they are doing know about each other. We get to know the producers personally and then sort of tap into the lifeblood of those communities.

Talk us through the food and wine offer and how you are running people eating in/ taking wines out ?

Food pairings are based on choosing a cheese, or a tinned fish, or a type of charcuterie. We then match up the biscuits (or breads or crisps) and sauces, chutneys, hot sauces and pickled lemons, cornichons etc...and offer people matched wines.

In parallel people can come in off the street, pick a bottle of wine off the wall, some milk or steak or cheese from the fridge pay for the products at the till and walk out.

How have you costed your wines and the margins you looking to make on drink in vs take out wines?

Everything in the Nekter Deli for take-out is priced at RRP. For drink-in we apply a £15 margin to the regular wine list. For the reserve wine-list we do not distinguish, so you pay RRP to drink-in some truly fabulous and highly sought after wines.

What have been the biggest challenges so far in getting Nekter Deli off the ground?

Getting the word out. The area we are in has a micro-community, but very little footfall. We are in an ideal middle spot between the City, Shoreditch and Silicon Roundabout, but we are in a back street with almost no traffic, so we get literally no passing trade.

What has been the most rewarding and exciting thing about starting up Nekter Deli?

Getting to know the community. Our focus on stories means we over-index on engaging with people, talking about the producers and the products. The line between regular customer and friend is fast starting to blur.

* You can find out more about Nekter Deli at its website here.

* You can find Nekter Deli in Shoreditich at 3 Bowl Ct, London EC2A 3BH.

* Find out more about Nekter Wines and its range of New World new wave wines here.