There is a sprinkling of female wine experts in the Mother City and sommelier Penny Setti is one of them. At her newly opened wine bar, Penny Noire in the heart of downtown Cape Town, she’s delighting patrons with her unique wine selection.
“It’s unique,” says Penny Setti of her new baby, Penny Noire. And she’s right. Her wine bar is not a swanky stand-alone establishment. Instead, it’s an atmospheric enclave within Local at Heritage Square, the new open-plan venture of chef-turned-entrepreneur Liam Tomlin that combines a food market experience with an array of enticing sit-down eateries – and which has fast become a favourite destination for Cape Town’s foodies.
The setting of Penny Noire, which combines old and new, sets it apart, and in keeping with Local at Heritage Square’s ethos, the wine display cabinet is filled with the best small and independent wines.
“This is what I love about Cape Town and the CBD – the heritage is retained which makes it exciting,” she says. Natural light flows through the venue, emphasising the high walls as well as the surrounding stalls and restaurants that make up the minimarket.
Setti says Tomlin “wanted to match the quality of food at Local at Heritage Square and the wine selection” as markets generally didn’t have quality wine bars. “He wanted to bridge that gap and asked me to open a wine bar,” she explains. She jumped at the opportunity and Penny Noire was born, officially opening its “doors” on 17 December 2020.
PASSION FOR WINE
Tomlin and Setti are no strangers: prior to opening Penny Noire, Setti was the manager at Tomlin’s famed Chefs Warehouse & Canteen in Bree Street for five years. During that time, her passion for wine grew, and in 2017 and she started studying through Wines of South Africa (WOSA) towards a qualification in wines, spirits and sake known as WSET (Wine & Spirit Education Trust).
WOSA runs a programme that aims to diversify the industry and Setti was chosen as one of the participants after applying to the nine wineries involved. Her Level 1 and 2 studies were funded by Radford Dale. Afterwards, Alex Dale from the winery, and one of Setti’s supporters and mentors, sponsored her Level 3 studies after seeing her passion and dedication. Currently, Setti is doing her diploma, which she’s juggling with the demands of a fledgling business.
As a professional sommelier, Setti likes to simplify things for patrons. She feels wine, and the technical jargon used by some experts, can be intimidating. While she loves interacting with knowledgeable wine lovers who know their wine, some customers are keen to embark on a journey of discovery.
“My role is to break things down so that I can understand the flavour profile of a patron. So, I’ll chat to my customers to find out what they like in a wine and whether we’ll be going for something fruity, earthy, spicy, smoky or flowery.”
BITTEN BY THE WINE BUG
Becoming a sommelier was not initially part of Setti’s plans. The 33-year-old Zambian-born entrepreneur, who has been in South Africa since 1999, studied Politics and International Relations at Rhodes University in Makhanda (Grahamstown) after high school. She then started working as a waitress at La Galleria restaurant in Makhanda, and that’s where she was bitten by the wine bug.
Her interest in wine was enhanced a few years’ later when she relocated to Cape Town and immersed herself in wine tastings and the Cape Winelands. Working at some of Cape Town’s destination restaurants broadened her knowledge: her waitressing jobs at Restaurant Sevruga and, in particular, the now-closed, iconic Savoy Cabbage, heightened her interest in wine.
At Savoy Cabbage, the manager was passionate about wine and encouraged Setti to understand and appreciate it, too. “I remember my boss saying, ‘You need to know what’s in the product you’re selling’, and it is one lesson I have never forgotten.”
When she joined Chefs Warehouse, her passion for and knowledge of wine enabled her to create a position for herself, and soon she and a colleague were given free rein by Tomlin to curate the wine menu. So it was a natural progression that he turned to Setti when he wanted to include a wine bar in the Local mix.
Penny Noire is a unique venue-within-a-venue, located as it is in Local on Heritage Square.
WHERE THERE’S WINE, EVERYONE’S JOLLY
Opening a wine bar in the middle of a pandemic, and its accompanying wave of economically crippling lockdown restrictions, is not for the faint of heart.
Penny Noire had only been open for 10 days when a new alcohol ban was slapped on the hospitality industry by the South African Government. So Setti packed up the wine and started playing around with non-alcoholic options, experimenting with simple syrups and juices to create mocktails. “We hunkered down,” she says, “and did what we could and somehow we pulled through.”
Now things are back to “normal” and Setti says the response to, and support for, Penny Noire has been “great”. She won’t be drawn on her favourite wines but admits to being a “huge fan of Chenin Blanc”.
Living in a country that produces top-quality wines is wonderful, and allows her to pick and choose from a plethora of estates and the exceptional wines produced by the many talented winemakers out there. “There’s a lot of work involved behind the scenes, what you see here is the fun part. South Africa’s wine scene is very exciting … there’re a lot of younger winemakers who are experimental which is also giving rise to lighter wines. “
Operating in the Cape Town CBD, a stone’s throw from Dorrance Winery (also in Heritage Square) and close to great establishments such as Culture Wine Bar by chef Matt Manning, Openwine by Raphael Paterniti and Marta Gobbo and Leo’s Wine Bar inside Max Bagels, is inspiring.
“There’s a saying amongst us that ‘where there’s wine, everyone’s jolly’,” Setti laughs, acknowledging the mutual respect amongst the wine-bar owners in the CBD which all have a unique offering. “It makes the experience for patrons visiting the CBD so much richer.”
LIFE AFTER WINE
Even though her new venture keeps her very busy, and she is currently completing her diploma, Setti is thriving. “I’m always on the go,” she says, alluding to the fact that a nine-to-five office job isn’t for her.
She also hails from a very creative family – her father was an artist and her sister, Maileshi Setti, a fine art graduate – so it was perhaps inevitable that she, too, would end up in a creative space where “you learn something new every day”.
To unwind, she hikes regularly. “You have to find stuff that’s mentally stimulating and not be one dimensional,” she says. Setti most certainly isn’t.
IMAGES: CCID