From left to right: Nádia Desidério, Xavier Rousset, Emer Landgraf, Gonzalo Rodriguez Diaz, Pablo Rivero, and Melania Bellesini

Drinking with the world’s top sommeliers: Part I

Wine Lister delves into the stories behind six sommeliers’ standout wines. We also seek their recommendations for exceptional yet affordable bottles under £35 (retail) and their suggestions for optimum food pairings at home.

Nádia Desidério – Floor Manager at Belcanto, Lisbon

At Lisbon’s Belcanto, Nádia opts for Nossa Calcário 2021 Bairrada Branco as her standout wine, calling it “a beautiful mineral wine with a certain smokiness, fruity touch, and slightly nutty character”. Filipa Pato’s project, which focuses only on indigenous grape varieties and biodynamic viticultural practices, “create[s] authentic wines without makeup”, each one a “terroir” wine with its own character – a unification of “knowledge, art, and nature”.

Cortes de Cima Tinto 2020 Alentejo is Nádia’s favourite for under £35. Made from grapes that are “vibrant [and] full of energy”, this wine’s “countless layers” and “impeccable texture” pair well at home with lamb or charcuterie, due to its complex aromas of “cedar [and] wet earth”.

Xavier Rousset – Director at Blandford Comptoir, London

Xavier cites a magnum of 1971 Domaine Armand Rousseau Chambertin Clos de Beze Grand Cru as the wine that has stood out the most to him. Having tasted the red at a friend’s 60^th birthday, he encapsulates its quality in the way that “the room became totally silent while we were tasting (drinking!) the wine”.

Ribeira Sacra, and notably Adega Algueira, occupies much of Xavier’s list of favourite wines for under £35. At home, he would pair these wines with a medium-rare, aged rib-eye steak, cooked on the barbecue and served with a peppercorn sauce – “nice and easy!”

Emer Landgraf – Head Sommelier at The Clove Club, London

Biondi-Santi’s Rosato di Toscana 2010 has left the biggest impression on Emer. Having first tasted it in 2018, after purchasing six bottles with her former boss “on a whim”, she remarks how “eight-year-old rosé isn’t usually something to search for, but if I found a bottle again I would pick it up in a heartbeat”. Emer tells us that the wine is no longer in production, but she believes its quality derives from the skill of “a family deep in winemaking history”, and the “extensive care” that they take with the Sangiovese grape.

For a bottle under £35, Emer recommends Château de Plaisance’s L’Anjou Blanc: a “dry and racy” Chenin Blanc that “changes so much as it opens up, which makes it the perfect food pairing”. Emer loves to pair a Chenin with a “richer fish”. At The Clove Club, they are currently pairing it with “turbot, egg yolk, and raw Caesar mushroom” – “something the acidity can cut through”.

Gonzalo Rodríguez Díaz – Head Sommelier at La Dame de Pic, London

Gonzalo cites Lafleur 1982 as the bottle that cemented his love of wine. As a young waiter, he was given a glass from a colleague to taste blind during a busy service. He tells us that “time stopped, and [he] experienced something supernatural, quite surreal”.

Regularly enjoying wines for less than £35, Gonzalo says Rioja’s Bodegas Moraza Garnacha 2019 is a “textbook Grenache that should be presented in every wine course”, while noting that it pairs beautifully with suckling pig or roasted quail. “In an era when Burgundy is more expensive than ever”, Gonzalo believes that Weingut Bernhard Huber, from Baden in Germany, produces excellent Pinot Noirs that can hold their own against Burgundy cuvées that are twice the price. He cites their Malterdinger Spätburgunder Trocken 2018 in particular ("Spätburgunder" being the word for Pinot Noir in German).

Pablo Rivero – Owner of Don Julio, Buenos Aires

For the past twenty years, Pablo and his team have tasted around 3,000 different Argentinian wines every year in order to compile Don Julio's ever-evolving wine list. Out of all of these wines, Pablo has been most impressed by PerSe La Craie 2014 – a “beautiful wine” that he discovered in a blind tasting. Pablo remarks that his team hadn’t been able to build as strong and intimate a bond with a wine before then.

For under £35, Pablo prefers Bodega Cara Sur's Moscatel Blanco. He would pair this at home with Argentinian sweetbreads, grilled pork, scalded rice, or risotto.

Melania Bellesini – Head Sommelier at The Fat Duck, Berkshire

Opening a bottle of Cantina Terlan Sauvignon Quarz 1996 out of “sheer curiosity” during her early career as a sommelier, Melania discovered an unparalleled “aged Sauvignon Blanc (15 years old) that had such elegance, tension and [a] harmonious palate”. Melania explains that “it was a revelation” for her to see how this wine could age “so graciously and still have such a wonderful energy”.

Constantly looking out for new grapes, or wines from remote places, she tells us of her fondness of “travel[ling] the world in wine from the comfort of [her] own home”. An interest in production in Eastern Europe and Asia has led her to a wine from Armenia: Zorah Voski 2021, “a white blend of local grape varieties produced at altitude from original root stocks”. At home she likes to pair it “with monk fish, poached white asparagus, and oyster mushrooms”, or with a chicken breast, “pan-fried, with candied lemon zest and sage”.

Stay tuned until next week, where we find out about five more of the world's best sommeliers' top vinous picks. In the meantime, you can read our sommelier recommendations from 2021 here.