You are what you drink, says sommelier Garth Beer

You are what you drink: okku’s head sommelier and caterer’s sommelier of the year predicts ‘green’ wines will dominate wine menus worldwide over the next few years...

I arrived in Dubai on Thursday 27 December 2007, two days after Christmas and four days before New Year’s Eve, a pretty unconventional time of year to start a new chapter in one’s life and definitely the busiest time of year to start a new job within the hospitality industry.

I had an amazing opportunity to be assistant head sommelier in my second favourite city in the world: Hong Kong. But now I stood on the tarmac at DXB Terminal 1 thinking to myself, “Hong Kong would have been awesome, but this, this is the wild west of the hospitality industry, if I can make an impact here, my future will be set in stone and the stuff of stories and legends.” I admit I might have got carried away there for a second, but the possibilities were and still are endless.

Most guests’ idea of a sommelier is that the majority of us are simply ‘wine waiters’ and honestly this is a pretty accurate depiction of the majority, however, who wants to be in the majority?

The handful of top sommeliers across Dubai, who over the last 10 years have been working closely with the local distributors, agents and brokers, they have helped bring Dubai and the UAE to the world’s attention on the restaurant scene and better yet, have helped to increase the awareness, the quantity and quality of wines across the GCC.

When I first arrived we were a small group of sommeliers from across the world. Experienced international teams were starting to make an appearance within big hotel groups such as Jumeirah, One & Only and Starwood’s Westin and we started to get a bigger mix of trained sommeliers.

The following year Reflets Par Pierre Gagnaire opened with an award winning sommelier, quickly followed by independent and international restaurant powerhouses Zuma, Nobu and homegrown new kid on the block, Okku, with the focus being on international levels of quality, service and knowledge. Dubai’s wine industry was about to go from Z list to A list.

Competition across the top 10% of the luxury fine dining venues increased to a very healthy level where each restaurant tried raising the bar with larger selections, longer vintage lists, cult producers and exclusive offerings for their patrons led by a charismatic and knowledgeable head sommelier.

So what’s next in the world of wine? Well more and more luxury venues are opening every day, some backed by celebrity chefs, others by a renowned brand name. This will see the demand for sommeliers in Dubai and the wider region rocket. Moreover, this trend will see sommeliers look to the region as an important destination that takes wine seriously.

Wine consumption in the region is already on the up as people here become more knowledgable about the various wine varieties. While my favourites – varieties from particular regions inside Spain, Italy and France, from whites and rose’s through to reds and desert wine – are still relatively small here, I do predict they will become more mainstream as more menus focus on wine regions and their historical grape varieties.

One producer doing incredibly well in this market with its indigenous grape focus, Laurenz V, Austria’s most well-known Gruner Vetliner producer, has gone from strength to strength.

First starting off on small wine lists six years ago to now being offered in Dubai’s top award winning venues and thankfully competing against the green grassy Sauvignon Blancs or tropical pineapple Pinot Grigios that seem to dominate all wine lists at the moment…including my own!

International trends seem to be focusing more attention towards the production of wine and what is exactly inside that bottle producers and estates claim to be wine. Finally we can apply the age old saying, ‘you are what you eat,’ to, ‘you are what you drink’.

Moving forward, there are a few wineries who are making a concerted effort to maintain organic, so no pesticide/chemical use, and biodynamic – with natural, zero or little interference to using nature’s cycles to determine and dictate harvest dates – practices from their vineyards through to their cellars and then beyond to using recycled glass, paper and cork for their bottle.

Michelin-star restaurants around the world now have dedicated pages in their wine lists that denote organic, natural and biodynamic wines for guests who are always questioning, always yearning and always seeking something new and let me tell you, some of them pack a heavy price tag too!

Garth Beer is head sommelier at Okku. In the past he has worked at Verre and MAZE in South Africa with Gordon Ramsay and WAFI Hospitality. He studied at the Cape Wine Academy.