Wine talk

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Taking part in the sommelier roundtable (clockwise from left): Caroline Furstoss, Luca Gagliardi and Julien Pagliuchi, Stéphane Soret.

What are your thoughts on the Dubai wine market?

Luca Gagliardi: I have been here for four years and looking at what we get today and what we got four years ago, there is a difference. In the past there were only generic wines and the quality wines were not here, so it is getting better. But you cannot compare it to London or New York; it is a closed market, a duopoly, and so there is no way you can have all the products.

Stéphane Soret: For me, I have been here for the past nine months and my main concern is that Dubai is a very immature market in terms of wine, and that goes for all actors; the guest, the supplier and the staff.

Do you think special imports are a good way of getting wines into your hotel?

Luca Gagliardi: My issue is why some hotels get priority. Is it because they are bigger, or because the supplier is closer to them and allowing them to have the exclusivity? This impacts on the single location restaurant as they cannot reach the supplier. I do not see any other country in the world with this kind of exclusivity.

Julien Pagliuchi: This is quite worrying. Our property will have 24 rooms, so it is very small. How am I going to get certain wines if the bigger hotels have priority?

Caroline Furstoss: When it comes to special imports just a few hotels care about the quality and have a very technical wine list in terms of vintage, and I am happy to be part of a hotel that does this. We don't want to take wines that everyone else has; we want to offer more wines, so we work with the suppliers to get special imports.

Julien Pagliuchi: That's true, it is boring to see wine lists that all look the same, so having special imports is a way of being different. For me, I would like to have a greater variety of wines on my list.

Luca Gagliardi: But what has happened in the past is that a hotel will place an order for a special import, and then the sommelier or food and beverage manager changes; so the next person to come along is left with a wine they may not want on their list.

Caroline Furstoss: But again, this shows the immaturity of the market. There should always be a sommelier there to sell the wine, even if management changes.

Stéphane Soret: If you decide to opt for special imports you have to be sure that you can sell it. At the Grand Hyatt I am now ordering special imports and storing it on-site. But you have to purchase wines that make business sense.

Around 60% of our sales are for wines under AED200 (US $55), so I prefer to get wines that I can sell at this price, but still as a special import.

Do allocations affect the wine you have in your restaurant?

Julien Pagliuchi: I worked in the Maldives before I came here and there the market is quite open, so I was buying direct for some wines. You had to make your own network and find a way to grab the wine and get it into the country. Here you don't have the choice, you have to go through MMI, a+e or EFW.

Luca Gagliardi: To be honest, in the suppliers defence, Dubai is a new market so allocation is not quite there. Sometimes they have to go to the UK market so there is no guarantee, and inevitably the prices will be higher. Also, we all know that vintages are a problem, but as there is no allocation this cannot be solved. It is a new market, so we have to consider this.

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