Maruthanayagam Periyasamy, Radisson Blu Dubai Media City

About Maruthanayagam
Maruthanayagam Periyasamy, known as Madan, joined the Radisson Blu Hotel, Dubai Media City in 2007. Since then he has shown incredible development in his role. Madan started his career with the hotel as Bar Commis, his passion and knowledge meant he developed and was appointed bartender before becoming Bar Captain and Sommelier at Certo in 2009. Madan is currently in charge of two outlets, Certo an award winning Italian restaurant and ICON Bar & Lounge. His overall duty is to select good quality wines from around the world in order to create a unique assortment that satisfies every guest needs and tastes whilst at the same time being profitable to the outlet. He recently launched Certo’s new wine list, which contains over 200 unique and carefully selected Italian wines, making it one of the largest selection of Italian wines in Dubai.

Above and beyond the call of duty…
Due to his passion, knowledge about wines, his outstanding customer service skills combined with his selling techniques, Madan has been able to drive the sales and exceed the required results by 21% compared to 2011 which represents AED 275,000 after launching the new wine lounge concept in ICON Lounge. The year 2011/12 has been a special year for Madan, as he successfully launched his new project at the ICON Lounge. He transformed the original ICON Lounge that was driven by beer sales, into a classy wine lounge, where he organizes monthly wine-tasting events. Those wine tasting events evolve around different topics ranging from food pairing to invitations of various wine makers from around the globe. In May, Madan hosted a wine tasting event with the wine maker of Argento in Argentina & prior to that, he had the pleasure of presenting 5 wines newly introduced in Dubai from Pascal Jolivet from France. Madan works closely with our wine suppliers to ensure that Icon Lounge is worth a stop for every wine maker who visits Dubai. In accordance with the wine tasting events Madan has created a Wine book, in which he introduced the new wine lounge concept. For the Wine book he chose a handful of Italian wines and paired them with the best dishes that Certo has to offer.

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Due to the high success of the wine events, Madan established a wine club, which has already attracted more than 120 wine connoisseurs, which meet on a regular basis for wine related events. He also recently launched Certo’s new wine list, which contains over 200 wines, making it one of the largest selection of Italian wines in town. Not an easy task where Madan had to carefully select over 120 new wines to be tasted with wine professionals from our suppliers before deciding with the management team what wines deserve to be part of his new list. Madan continuously look at new wines to source the best suited for Certo & that would complement the food we produce in order to stay at the top of his game continuously sourcing new Italian wines/grapes in this ever increasing/competitive market place. Madan’s passion for wine is also carried out beyond the job. In addition to his daily work, he allocates a large portion of his week to studying for his diploma and master of wine certificate. He just recently went to the UK to do his exam. Madan’s ambition is to add his name to the currently 4000 Master wine expert in the world. He allocates a portion of his annual holidays to visit wineries & do his exams. On top of that he also dedicates his annual leave to his passion. During his vacations he visits various wine farms around the world and has done wine placements at hotels in order to even further increase his knowledge about wines.

Testimonials for Madan

“Madan is a passionate individual about wines and beverages. He takes great pride in his job as a sommelier and continues harnessing his taste for wine like a true connoisseur. His passion of wine is well known throughout the hotel, he always shares his expertise of wine with customers and colleagues, because for him everyone has to enjoy the fine cuisine with the right wine. Madan is the best sommelier that an establishment could hope for in this highly competitive market.” Adil Souate, F&B manager at Radisson Blu Hotel, Dubai Media City.

“Madan is friendly and a very humble individual. Due to his passion for wines, he earned himself the nickname within the team as “the wine guy”. He takes great pride in his job as a sommelier and continues harnessing his taste for wine like a true connoisseur.” Francois Galoisy, general manager, Radisson Blu Hotel, Dubai Media City.