Small Vineyards and the Orange Wines We Pour at Ebury by Fat Macy's

At Ebury by Fat Macy's, the wine list is treated like a story about place, season, and the people who tend the vines. Tucked into a quiet corner of Pimlico, our deli and restaurant is best known for Lebanese-inspired small plates, natural wines, and a hospitality training programme that supports young people moving out of temporary accommodation. The orange wines we pour sit at the heart of this story, and almost every bottle comes from a small vineyard somewhere in Europe, the Levant, or beyond.

Orange wine, the ancient method of fermenting white grapes with their skins, has found a devoted audience in London over the past decade. We have watched that audience grow alongside ours, and we have learned that the most expressive skins and pours arrive from producers who farm a handful of hectares rather than hundreds. Their hands stay close to the fruit, the fermentations are often wild, and the choices they make in the cellar reflect a specific patch of soil rather than a corporate brief.

Pairing these bottles with za'atar flatbreads, labneh, slow-cooked lamb, and bright salads shaped by Beirut, the Bekaa Valley, and the broader Levant feels natural. Each skin-contact pour carries the same values we hold as a neighbourhood deli: care, craft, and the belief that small scale often means deeper meaning. The Fat Macy's training programme and the small-vineyard wine list are not two separate ideas. They are part of the same ethic.

The Quiet Character That Small Vineyards Bring to a Skin-Contact Pour

Orange wine is, by nature, an artisanal product. The winemaker chooses white grapes, often from a single plot, and ferments them on their skins in clay amphorae, old barrels, or stainless tanks. The result is a wine with texture, tannin, colour, and a kind of warm grip that calls for food. None of this works well at industrial scale, where uniformity is prized and experimentation punished. Small vineyards are where orange wine still feels alive.

When a vineyard covers only a few hectares, the harvest is often picked by hand, sometimes by family members and a handful of seasonal workers. Decisions about when to pick, how long to macerate, and when to press are made in the field, not in an office across a continent. The grapes travel short distances from vine to vat, which preserves freshness and gives the wine a clearer sense of its terroir. For a skin-contact bottle, that immediacy matters: every extra hour between picking and pressing can flatten the aromatics we want on the table at Ebury.

Small producers also tend to farm organically, biodynamically, or somewhere along that low-intervention spectrum. Many of them could not afford the chemicals, certifications, or laboratory tests demanded by large estates. Their farming practices become a quiet form of resistance, and the wines often arrive with a fingerprint of native yeast, ambient temperature, and unfined, unfiltered character. Guests at our deli counter frequently notice the difference after a single sip.

How the List Travels from a Family Vineyard to Pimlico

Most of the orange wines we pour at Ebury come from importers and distributors who share our values. These small trade partners travel to growers they know personally, often sharing meals and staying on-site during harvest. They taste from barrel, follow a vintage through the year, and bring back only what they genuinely believe in. The relationship is closer to a long friendship maintained through bottles and emails than a routine supply contract.

This matters for our diners, even if they never see the back story. A bottle grown by a family of four in the hills above Athens, or a co-operative of seven growers in Slovenia, arrives in Pimlico carrying context. Our team can tell you who farmed the grapes, what they ate for lunch on the last day of harvest, and why the winemaker chose to leave the wine on its skins for fourteen days rather than ten. That depth of knowledge turns a drink into a conversation, and it is something our staff can share with the confidence that comes from honest training.

We also work with a few Lebanese and Levantine producers whose approach to skin-contact winemaking reaches back thousands of years. The tradition in the Bekaa Valley and parts of Mount Lebanon predates the modern amber wine movement, and the bottles we source often come from people we know through family, friends, and shared suppliers. Pairing these pours with hummus, mtabbal, and slow-braised lamb carries a kind of cultural continuity that feels right in our dining room, where the deli menu and the wine list were always meant to speak to each other.

What Changes at the Table When the Wine List Stays Small

A long wine list built from large estates can feel impressive. A short list built from small producers feels alive. At Ebury, our orange wine selection is deliberately tight, often fewer than a dozen bottles, and that is a feature rather than a limitation. It allows us to know each pour intimately, to recommend pairings without hesitation, and to adjust the list as the seasons and our supplier relationships evolve.

Diners come to us for the food first, but the wine list shapes the rhythm of the meal. A glass of chilled skin-contact wine cuts through the richness of slow-cooked lamb shoulder. A more structured orange bottle stands up to aged mankoushe flatbreads and the sharpness of pickled chillies. By sourcing from small vineyards, we can match the menu's Lebanese roots with bottles that share a similar sensibility: ancient methods, minimal intervention, and food as the centre of the gathering.

Our private dining room and event hire clients often ask for wine pairings that suit a multi-course menu. With small-vineyard bottles, we have the freedom to design pairings that surprise: a young, vibrant orange pour alongside raw fish; a more mature, oxidative skin-contact wine next to slow-braised lamb and roasted carrots. The list is short, but it stretches far, and our team is trained to guide guests through it without intimidation.

Why Australian Diners Have Become Curious About Skin-Contact Wine

Across the world, the appetite for orange wine has grown steadily, and Australia is no exception. In Sydney, inner-city wine bars in neighbourhoods like Surry Hills, Newtown, and Redfern have built lists around low-intervention pours, often imported through small distributors who focus on growers we also admire. Melbourne's laneway restaurants and small bars in Collingwood and Fitzroy have done the same, pairing skin-contact bottles with share plates and casual menus. Brisbane's small-plate scene, particularly around Fortitude Valley and West End, has begun to follow.

Australian drinkers have a reputation for embracing new styles quickly, and the country's wine importers have responded. Boutique distributors in Melbourne and Adelaide now bring in skin-contact bottles from Slovenia, Georgia, Greece, and Italy, often from producers farming less than ten hectares. These importers operate under Australia's wine regulations, which require truthful labelling through the Wine Australia Corporation's Label Integrity Programme. Every bottle carries a country of origin statement and accurate vintage information, giving curious drinkers a clear path to learn what they are tasting.

Australian consumers also tend to ask thoughtful questions about provenance, ethics, and farming methods. That curiosity aligns naturally with our approach at Ebury. Whether a diner is visiting from Sydney, Melbourne, or a smaller city like Hobart, where the Museum of Old and New Art has helped put alternative wines on the cultural map, the conversation tends to move quickly from "what does it taste like" to "who made it, and where." Small-vineyard orange wines answer both questions at once.

A Bottle That Helps Train a Young Person for a Career in Hospitality

Fat Macy's, the social enterprise behind our deli, was founded to support young people living in temporary accommodation. Through our 200-hour training programme, participants learn the rhythms of a working kitchen and dining room: food preparation, service, cellar management, and customer care. The orange wine list we have built is part of that education, because it teaches trainees to talk about producers, regions, and methods with confidence.

When a trainee can describe the difference between a Georgian qvevri-fermented wine and a French skin-contact pour from the Loire, they are learning more than product knowledge. They are learning how to listen to a guest, how to recommend without pushing, and how to value the work of small farmers around the world. Many of our graduates go on to work in London restaurants, event catering, and venue hire, and the stories they carry with them become part of how they shape their own careers.

The values we hold at Ebury run through every part of the business. The deli sources from local, socially minded suppliers. The wine list leans on small growers who farm honestly. The training programme offers real opportunities to young people who need a hand up. A glass of orange wine at one of our tables, whether shared over a quick lunch or a long private dinner, connects all three. It is, in its own way, a small act of belief in a more careful kind of hospitality.