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Wine director Alec Cummings wants Sirene to be known as the wine destination of the East Bay.<\/p>\n
Andria Lo\/For the S.F. Chronicle<\/p>\n
Sirene earned its No. 73 spot on the Chronicle\u2019s Top 100 Restaurants list largely because of its\u00a0excellent buttermilk-brined fried chicken<\/a> and inventive seafood charcuterie. But what the Oakland restaurant wants to be known for \u2014 and what it really ought to be known for \u2014 is its singular wine list.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a big undertaking, but we want it to be known as the wine destination of the East Bay,\u201d wine director Alec Cummings said. Before its opening in 2025, he positioned the wine station by the front window, so that no one would be able to walk into or by the restaurant without seeing bottles.<\/p>\n Sirene is a wine geek\u2019s paradise, stocked with producers that are suddenly buzzy among those in the know \u2014 Champagne\u2019s Bichery, Burgundy\u2019s Guilbert Gillet and Vincent Paindavoine \u2014 as well as the benchmarks that those folks have been nerding out on for years \u2014 the Rhone\u2019s Pierre Gonon, Spain\u2019s Env\u00ednate, the Loire\u2019s Guiberteau. It has also become known as the premiere destination for pours of vintage Chartreuse, the herbal liqueur made by Carthusian monks in France, as well as for its popular Chartreuse slushies<\/a>.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Customers Taylor\u00a0Smalls and\u00a0Holden Bussey chat with general manager Jake Michahelles at Sirene.<\/p>\n Gabrielle Lurie\/S.F. Chronicle<\/p>\n The list that Cummings and Sirene co-owner Paul Einbund have assembled is a meandering tome divided into highly descriptive categories \u2014 some stylistic (\u201cRustic Reds that Love Food\u201d), some regional (\u201cSalty, Pure, Mineral Chardonnay aka Chablis\u201d), some varietal (\u201cChenin Blanc, rocky & textural, lightning in a bottle\u201d). They\u2019ve painstakingly itemized each category\u2019s wines from lightest- to fullest-bodied. The markups are humane: Whereas most Bay Area restaurants list a bottle at about 3.5 times the wholesale cost, Sirene charges around 2.8. All of these factors contribute to why the Chronicle gave Sirene its Best Beverage Program award at the Top 100 gala earlier this month.<\/p>\n By traditional wine-program standards, Sirene\u2019s list is strange. It completely ignores genres that would have been mandatory for a serious wine list in a previous era, such as first-growth Bordeaux. \u201cWe would never get a Wine Spectator Grand Award,\u201d Einbund said, referring to the gold standard of accolades for wine-focused restaurants. Instead, it is a distillation of Einbund and Cummings\u2019 eclectic tastes \u2014 and, they hope, a reflection of the evolving wine culture of Oakland.<\/p>\n San Francisco Chronicle Logo<\/p>\n Make us a Preferred Source to get more of our news when you search.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Add Preferred Source<\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n To understand Sirene\u2019s approach to wine, however, one must first understand its sister restaurant, the Morris.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Paul Einbund arranges his Chartreuse \u201cmuseum\u201d at the Morris, his San Francisco restaurant, in 2023.\u00a0<\/p>\n Scott Strazzante\/S.F. Chronicle<\/p>\n When Einbund opened the Morris in 2016, it was a groundbreaking moment for San Francisco\u2019s wine scene. The sommelier had come up at blue-chip San Francisco restaurants such as Tartare<\/a>, Bacar, Coi and the Slanted Door<\/a>, before running the wine programs at chef Melissa Perello\u2019s New Californian restaurants Frances and Octavia. With the Morris, he was finally opening a restaurant for himself, and its focal point was the audaciously personal wine list<\/a>, sourced in large part from the collection he\u2019d amassed over a decade. Einbund imported many of the Morris\u2019 wines himself, securing cuvees that were otherwise impossible to find in the U.S. (and good prices on them). He bought troves of California wines from the \u201950s and \u201960s straight from the cellars of retired local winemakers. Against the advice of his bar consultants, Thad Vogler<\/a> and Erik Adkins, he went heavy on Chartreuse, even introducing the cheeky slushie \u2014 \u201cand, as fate would have it, Chartreuse blew up right around the same time we opened,\u201d Einbund said.<\/p>\n Before long, the Morris had become San Francisco\u2019s top restaurant for wine insiders: It was where visiting winemakers hosted special dinners and where serious wine collectors came to ball out on Burgundy.<\/p>\n One of the wine enthusiasts who flocked to the Morris in its early days was Cummings, then working as an animation designer in the city. Over a bottle of 2012 B\u00e9n\u00e9ti\u00e8re Cote Rotie \u2014 a wild, powerful Syrah from France\u2019s Northern Rhone that made him think, \u201cI had no idea Syrah could taste like that\u201d \u2014 Cummings struck up a conversation with Einbund. Before long, he had a job as a busser at the restaurant. He was promoted to expediter, then worked his way up to become the wine director.<\/p>\n Paul Einbund pours wine at the Morris in 2017.<\/p>\n Jen Fedrizzi\/For the S.F. Chronicle<\/p>\n By the time Einbund and chef Gavin Schimdt were preparing to open Sirene, in early 2025, he had fully handed over the wine program to Cummings. A health issue with his throat has made it difficult for Einbund to fulfill a full night of sommeliering \u2014 which consists mainly of talking loudly to customers for hours \u2014 and so he has \u201ctransitioned to more of an overseeing role,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Taking over a wine program that was so deeply defined by its founder\u2019s personality would seem to be impossible. \u201cBut I was trained by Paul, and the Morris was the only restaurant I\u2019d ever worked (at), and he trained my palate,\u201d Cummings said. The list he created at Sirene \u201cby design was meant to feel similar\u201d to that of the Morris.<\/p>\n Chartreuse even makes an appearance in dessert at Sirene. Here, the buckwheat doughnuts with Chartreuse cr\u00e8me\u00a0anglaise.\u00a0<\/p>\n Gabrielle Lurie\/S.F. Chronicle<\/p>\n Similar, but not the same. Sirene is for Oakland, not San Francisco, and reflects the Town\u2019s greater interest in low-intervention wines. \u201cI think of Sirene\u2019s list as being more playful, younger, fresher,\u201d Cummings said, \u201creally straddling the line between what I think of as the natural wine<\/a> scene and the more classic, ageworthy wines you find at the Morris.\u201d Not that Sirene is trying to compete with Ordinaire<\/a>, its Grand Avenue neighbor and arguably Oakland\u2019s foremost natural wine destination. The Sirene list will never be as \u201cnatty\u201d as Ordinaire\u2019s selection, but it does have \u201cmore edge and more sauvage\u201d than its sister restaurant\u2019s, Einbund said.<\/p>\n That translates, on the Sirene list, to entries such as Chablis from Ath\u00e9na\u00efs de B\u00e9ru, a modern hero of France\u2019s natural wine scene whose Chardonnays would nevertheless please a more traditional palate. And to the already-quirky chapter list, Cummings recently added an entire section of Aligot\u00e9<\/a> \u2014 the lesser-known white grape of Burgundy that is experiencing a quality renaissance right now, especially among younger, progressive winemakers. (Aligot\u00e9 is less prestigious than the white Burgundy Chardonnays that comprise a large chunk of the Morris\u2019 selection \u2014 and also invariably less expensive.)<\/p>\n The Chartreuse slushie has become a staple at both Sirene and the Morris.<\/p>\n Gabrielle Lurie\/S.F. Chronicle<\/p>\n As with the Morris, Sirene\u2019s formidable list belies the true depth of the cellar that supplies it. Einbund has nine offsite storage facilities for the two restaurants\u2019 bottles (plus the cellar in his own home, located above the Morris), totaling about $1 million worth of inventory. (That doesn\u2019t count the 6,500 bottles in stock at the Morris at any given time.) Only about 35% of that inventory is represented on the wine lists at any given time, Cummings said, an expression of the team\u2019s devotion to listing only those bottles that are perfectly ready to drink. If he and Einbund believe that a vintage needs a couple more years to open up, it won\u2019t be on the list yet.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n The pair are also committed to pricing the wines based on what they paid for them, not based on current market value. When the Morris opened, the list included about three pages of old California wines going back to the \u201950s; none was over $200, and most hovered around $60. Einbund could have sold them for much more, but he\u2019d gotten the lot for a song, from a retiring California winemaker. \u201cAll my friends said we needed to mark them up \u2014 they\u2019re going to disappear,\u201d Einbund said. \u201cAnd I was like, \u2018Great, people will remember them forever.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Chef Gavin Schmidt and Paul Einbund, the co-owners of Sirene.<\/p>\n Andria Lo\/For the S.F. Chronicle<\/p>\n He\u2019s made an exception, though, for some of his rarer Chartreuse pours. The Carthusian monks began producing less of the liqueur in recent years, opting to instead focus on their monastic duties, resulting in a global shortage<\/a> just as demand was skyrocketing. The vintage market, Einbund said, has become rife with counterfeits. He will buy older Chartreuse from only two trusted sources, and he has increased the price on pours to reflect the dwindling supply.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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