An Unconventional Wine Bar, From a Serious Burgundy Club

Attic 42 by SBR is South Bridge Réserve's answer to a question its own membership model can't ask: what happens when one of the city's most serious Burgundy community stops gatekeeping itself?

This newest wine bar in town is an offshoot of South Bridge Réserve, the private members club centred around Burgundy. Unlike its counterpart in the same building, membership is not required to visit Attic 42 by SBR.

Run by the same team, Attic 42 by SBR shares South Bridge Réserve's cellar but wears it in an entirely different manner. The rooftop bar looks out over the CBD skyline instead of the enclosed room downstairs. Perhaps the most telling sign is the stemless wine glasses. It's an extremely tiny detail, but one that reads like a statement of intent.

The pours start at $14 a glass for a Terre Gaie NV Prosecco, a wine that would never appear on South Bridge Réserve's own list. This Prosecco, sitting right on top of the wine list, sets the register for the place: reasonable by-the-glass pricing, a Burgundy-heavy backbone still visible underneath, and with enough range outside France. There's a Japanese Chardonnay from Nagomi Vineyards, an Austrian Blaufränkisch-Zweigelt blend from Gut Oggau, a Spanish Mencía from Bodega La Senda — all pointing to the fact that this isn't just South Bridge Réserve with the prices sanded down. It's a list built for someone who wants to drink well on a Tuesday, after a long day at the start of a new week. 

You can rate wines that you have tried on the menu. Although, it is worth mentioning that these ratings signifies preference, and may not an indication of the actual quality of the wines. 

Managing Director of Attic 42 by SBR and South Bridge Réserve, James Moon, has alluded to the idea that wines might be swap out depending on the ratings. Customers make the call here. 

But Burgundy is still there, though, for anyone who knows to ask. South Bridge Reserve's wine list is also available at Attic 42 by SBR, but even its own wine list features well-respected producers including Domaine Jean-Claude Bachelet and Domaine Simon Bize. Whether Attic 42 becomes the accessible front door to South Bridge Réserve's cellar, or a genuinely separate identity that happens to share the same owner, is the question worth watching over its first year.

For me, the heart of Attic 42 by SBR is in the deliberate food choices. Rows of cup noodles from Thailand, Korea, Malaysia, sit on the shelf next to sous vide eggs. It's a deliberately unserious pairing for a genuinely serious cellar, and it works precisely because it doesn't try to dress itself up. Cook yourself a cup of mama noodle with a glass of Burgundy in the other hand, and nobody is going to bat an eyelid. 

Customers are also served warm crunchy popcorn, made fresh in a timely a timely manner by Dhipan, one of the bar managers. These crunchy popcorn, flavoured with nutritional yeast, was difficult to stop myself from scarfing down once I had my first bite.