Tell us about the moment you first became interested in wine...
I was always interested in wine – my father used to collect wine, and it was normal to enjoy a bottle with dinner every night. I was intrigued as a child by the different labels and how the wines varied. But it was in 2005, when I was cooking with a team of somms in Toro, Spain, that I had an extraordinary moment. It was my first taste of the locally-produced Bodega Numanthia Termanthia 2002 - it took me to the land, to the people, to the traditions of the place. This was a complex wine and instilled in me a sense of mystery about the power of wine and its connection to history, to nature, and showed me that wine was something you could study forever.
Tell us about your wine list at Restaurant 1890
I don’t believe I’ve ever put so much into a wine list, my entire 20 years of experience went into this list. I wanted to create an experience close to everyone’s heart, most importantly to provide a connection between the vineyard and the consumer. I didn’t have to restrict myself, the sky was the limit, and I think we have created something exceptional and unique. We are a very small restaurant, just 24 seats, yet we are able to offer 100 wines by the glass as well as having a long and wide-ranging list of bottles. We have five different wine pairings with our tasting menus, each a different experience and at different price levels, and getting this just right with seasonally changing menus is a huge challenge.
Over the course of your career, have you had any wine-related disasters?
When I was working for Crystal (a high-end cruise line), I was opening a bottle of Champagne on the side station. The bottle came straight from the cellar. I grasped the bottle. I removed the foil. I covered the cage with a fresh cloth. I aimed it away from the guest. I let go. The cork, propelled by pressure twice that of the average car tire, flew straight and true to the shelves of the Riedel Champagne glassware. I turned away, unable to watch. Now, instead of an image of the damage, I have a time-lapse soundtrack of the musical shatter of those elegant, expensive glasses. The force of the cork broke the first two and the rest toppled into one another, like glass dominoes. I believe it happened because of the motion of the sea.
Name your top three restaurant wine lists
67 Pall Mall, 10 Cases, Oeno (all in London).
Who do you most respect in the wine world?
Eric Zwiebel MS. When I arrived in the UK in 2012 I worked with him at the Red Carnation Group when he was taking part in the Best Sommelier in the World. He taught me such a lot, and he’s remained very well respected in UK market, with a remarkable cellar at Summer Lodge.
What’s the most interesting wine you’ve ever come across?
Meursault Les Gouttes D’Or Domaine d’Auvenay from Leroy empire and the 1989 Barolo Reserva Collina Rionda from Bruno Giacosa. These are both wines that take you to a place, to a history and to a specific tradition of wine making, a liquid connected to science and mystery in equal measures.
What are the three most overused tasting notes?
Balanced, people think it’s everywhere, but actually it’s really hard to achieve and is often used inappropriately. And apple or cherry notes. These are just too general, are they really describing what they mean?
What is your ultimate food and drink match?
Langoustine with truffle, sea kale and Jerusalem artichoke. I paired this tricky dish with Domaine Huet’s Clos de Bourg Demi-Sec Vouvray 1957.
Old World or New World?
Both are great – good wines can be found everywhere you just have to know how to look for them.
What is your pet hate when it comes to wine service in other restaurants?
A sommelier is a psychologist, a counsellor, an artist and a performer, as well as an expert, and it’s a difficult combination of talents and very few people live up to this. But my pet hate is when sommeliers are too keen to push what they want onto the guest, rather than talking to them about what they like.
Who is your favourite producer at the moment and why?
There’s an amazing Portuguese wine maker Herdade do Rocim, doing an insane job with a series of wine produced all over the world. Each one is named after a different planet.
As a sommelier, what question do you most get asked by customers?
Can I take a picture of the bottle? If they don’t ask this question it means the wine was not up to their satisfaction.
Which wine producing region or country is currently underrated at the moment and why?
It has to be Eastern Europe, the Balkans, Georgia, Slovakia, Czech Republic, they just don’t have the right marketing set-up in the UK, and producers don’t get the opportunity to present their wines here. I have a Georgian Kisi orange wine 2019 Qvevri Kisi, Dakishvili Family Selection, Georgia which is beautiful paired with bouillabaisse à la Parisienne.
It’s your last meal and you can have a bottle of any wine in the world. What is it and why?
It has to be a Madeira from 1862. The best vintage of Terrantez ever made but the greatest of all Madeiras. Astonishingly full and assertive bouquet of candied peel and coconut. Immensely weighty on the palate however behind the opulence, a steely backbone of acidity and almost medicinally dry, with a bitter finish and length which goes on and on...
