New on Wine List Confidential: 34 Mayfair

At 34 Mayfair, group head sommelier and wine buyer Guillem Kerambrun has brought together a growing collection of “urban wines” with the aim of presenting bottles from “talented winemakers who are not based in the vineyard but the middle of a city”.

“The idea is to present wines from talented winemakers who are not based in the vineyard but the middle of a city, like Renegade (London), Les Vignerons Parisiens (Paris), Red Hook (Brooklyn) and Dorrance (Cape Town),” he explains.

Kerambrun spent 13 years working for Alain Ducasse in France and New York. ‘I also ran wine services for the wedding of Prince Albert of Monaco, the official dinner for the French President and the Chinese president, and the 25th anniversary of Louis XV restaurant in Monaco,’ he says.

Kerambrun joined Caprice Holdings and The Birley Group in early 2017, working closely with the groups’ sommelier and bar teams to ‘remodel’ lists. He also appointed a dedicated sommelier at 34 Mayfair, overseeing a considered list which runs from a sub £30 Grolleau Gris from the land of Muscadet to Le Pin Pomerol at an eye watering £20,000 for a magnum of 1983, ‘which demonstrates our increasing focus on wine at the restaurant, reducing the numbers of cuvées per winery, and bringing in more diversity in the selection of countries, appellation and number of domains.’

Kerambrun never lists a wine without having tasted it, evaluating the balance between pleasure, price and its renown. ‘But it is not just my decision, because it’s ultimately the team who decide to keep it on the list or not.’

Dishes at 34 Mayfair may include Sicilian red prawn, scallop and bass ceviche with apple, jalapeño and plantain crisp, partridge tortellini with cime de rapa, chanterelles and foie gras, and bone in Yorkshire heritage pure breeds rib-eye, followed by maraschino cherry ripple ice cream or doughnuts with chocolate sauce, lemon meringue and raspberry sauce, possibly with a glass of Maury Grande Reserve (Pouderoux).

Each restaurant has its own corkage policy, notes Kerambrun, ‘but most of the time we accept one bottle per table and if the host chooses other wines from our list, we sometimes waive the corkage fee.’

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the drinks business published the inaugural 2017 Wine List Confidential: One to Sixty-One guide last year. We are currently working on a new 2018 edition and are busy re-reviewing top-scoring restaurants and adding new entries to the database. Check back later in the year for final scoring and position of restaurants.