The role played by wine, and by sommeliers, is becoming ever more central in the world of gastronomy and in this year’s Stars Route the spotlight was on them.
Contemplating dinner through a wineglass may sound wacky. But wine can make the difference and turn dinning at a restaurant into an amazing experience. Sommeliers represent yet another note in the melodious tune played by the ensemble of chefs, service, food and overall atmosphere.
Right now sommeliers have acquired a cult following and are as ‘in’ as the wines they serve. It would be unfair not to recognise the role they have played as ambassadors of Portuguese wine which has met a growing interest in the international context.
‘Wines made in Portugal are hip!’ says António Lopes, from the Conrad Algarve, with whom Essential spoke and who was awarded the title of Portugal’s best sommelier. He was one of the guests of this year’s Stars Route, the food festival that opens at Il Galo D’Oro, in Funchal, and goes through a series of other Portuguese and Spanish Michelin-star bearing restaurants.
While you might think that gathering award-winning chefs is enough of a challenge already, this year, the organizers of the event, the Porto Bay group, decided to take it even further and have the spotlight focused on those who deal directly with wines. It was the sommeliers’ mission to guide guests through the more than 60 wines being served, more than half of which were Portuguese, and the majority of which are produced with Portuguese grape varieties.
More than an opportunity to promote Portuguese wines, this was a chance to have them paired with the best delicacies you can imagine, such as oysters, caviar, lobster, langoustine and truffles.
The pairing of food and wine was left in the hands of Il Galo D’Oro’s very own sommelier, Sérgio Marques. Going with Portuguese wines meant choosing from dozens of grape varieties, many of which are not internationally well known.
More often than not, the pairing of food and wine in gastronomic festivals is tied to the events’ sponsors. The whole process starts as early as two months prior to the event: ‘I ask for full-bodied as well as lighter wines with varying degrees of fruitiness. I ask for white wines, Port wines, late harvests…’. Sérgio Marques says that when the ‘chefs send me their menus I already filter the options in my mind’. It is only when chefs arrive that tastings are carried out and the pairings are fine tuned.
Tradition, contrast and balance, all are good ways of achieving harmony ‘but it’s the bigger picture that we should aim at’. Good harmony, says Sérgio Marques, ‘can be seen in the client’s face’ or, as explained by António Lopes, has to be ‘something memorable that has the client go “Wow!”’. One ought to strive for ‘harmony, bonding, a handshake’, maintains Sérgio Marques.
António Lopes points out that food and wine pairings may vary from client to client as all is ‘very personal’. For him, ‘wine has the capacity to elevate the dish to a whole other level’.
Sérgio Marques feels that due to the wine fad, sommeliers are enjoying renewed attention. ‘Love is in the air, in the aroma, wine is status!’ Still, João Chambel, from Estado D’alma, a bar & bistro in Lisbon and also a holder of the sommelier of the year title, holds that there ought to be a greater investment in wine.
António Lopes refers to the business element: ‘More and more, people expect not only quality from our service but also an exclusive experience’. This is what makes the sommelier ‘an indispensable cog in the restaurant’s machinery’ and it has commercial consequences: ‘While the kitchen generates a set amount of profit, the margins returned by wine can vary a great deal!
In many parts of the world, one chooses wine based on grape variety. In Portugal however, hundreds of brands and labels abound. Sérgio Marques believes this reflects the ‘passion that drives everyone to produce a wine that is their own’.
António Lopes refers the weather and the diversity of grape varieties as a differentiating factor for Portuguese wines. The sheer amount of labels accounts for real differences among wines, ‘any detail regarding the vineyard or cellar changes the end product’. Sérgio Marques agrees that these differences are translated into wines’ flavours and reminds us that Portuguese wines are well known for their terroir.
João Chambel adds that ‘new labels come up every week’ forcing sommeliers to always be up-to-date. To foreigners, though, he presents Portuguese wines as being ‘very flexible’.
Increasingly, restaurants that strongly invest in their wine offer find their customers choosing their meals based on their choice of wine. Sérgio Marques estimates that this happens with ‘about 45%’ of customers at Il Galo D’Oro. João Chambel does not even bother with a wine list: ’I have my list but everyone chooses their drink first and then, based on that, people choose their dish’. António Lopes’ experience though, points to the contrary, while there are people who choose their wine first this is ‘still very occasional’.
Sommeliers strive towards having their wines and themselves be acknowledged in a starry sky where one can hardly look away from the glitter of the internationally renowned chefs of the Stars Route.
Yet, Georges Santos, a sommelier established in Lyon of Portuguese ancestry and holder of France’s largest collection of Portuguese wines who is well known for turning his performances into real shows for the media, alerts to the fact that in festivals and even restaurants, the focus should be on chefs and their cooking. Wine is but the final piece of the puzzle.
This year, the Stars Route was once again the perfect stage not only for wine but also for food of the highest standards.
Besides the Kitchen Alive event that had more than a dozen guests chefs and 29 food and beverage stands, this edition of the Stars Route consisted of two tasting dinners that gathered chefs worth eight Michelin stars in total. Another of the event’s highlights was pastry, embodied in the award-winning French pastry chefs Julien Boutonnet and Christophe Renou.
The event also had the participation of a group of chefs from the Algarve: newcomers Henrique Leis and Rui Silvestre, each holding a Michelin star, and the regulars Hans Neuner and Dieter Koschina, holders of two stars each. Another group of two star-holding chefs travelling from the Netherlands comprised Michael Van der Kroft, Erik van Loo and Richard van Oostenbrugge.
Among the guests, were the Portuguese Kiko Martins, Paulo Morais and Miguel Gameiro and the French Olivier Barbarin e David Faure.
