Patrick Pugliese. The stylish sommelier
‘With a name like Pugliese ‘ it’s a silent G, it confused the hell out of my teachers at school’, you might expect our new wine writer to be as Italian as all get out. The fact that he worked as Head Sommelier, and now as Assistant Manager at Conran’s very Italian Sartoria restaurant might encourage that view. The fact is that Patrick is very Australian albeit with an Italian father and a love of Italian wines.
Just twenty-seven now and already high in his profession, Patrick is a passionate wine buff. ‘I don’t know where a love of wine comes from, ‘ he muses. ‘It’s not something taught at school!’ Nonetheless it was a love that blossomed after he left school and went to university.
‘I worked, like so many people, in restaurants and bars around Perth to get a little money and I just loved the business. Then my mother bought a vineyard just outside Melbourne and twisted my arm to come work there.’ Not your average mum then? ‘No,’ he laughs, ‘but it was so interesting. I learnt a lot about the scientific side of wine making, as well the production which all then went to help me in my restaurant work.’
The love of wine took him to Europe in 1998. “I didn’t quite get to back to finish my degree,’ he admits ruefully. ‘Instead I got an invitation to set up a wine department in a resort in Tuscany so I spent two years there getting it off the ground which was a great experience and a real eye opener. I felt by then that I had Aussie wines pretty much boxed off, so this was a chance to really learn about Italian wines in practice.’ A spell at the Stokehouse Restaurant in Melbourne in 2002 also helped his skills develop, ‘it’s got a well known sommelier programme, it’s where Matt Skinner who is now with Jamie Oliver cut his teeth, ‘ he points out.
The eventual move to London was inevitable. ‘Yes,’ he agrees. ‘So many great restaurants and easy access to the world’s wines here. His travels brought him to Sartoria where he inherited a sound cellar. ‘It was a nice eclectic selection,’ he recalls. ‘Only about 160 wines and I had an open brief to add to it, to look beyond the Tuscans as it were. The restaurant design and concept fired me to look at Piedmontese wines and using my experiences in Italy and knowledge of current trends I tried to fill any gaps that I perceived.’
‘And I found some surprises when I arrived,’ he tells me. ‘ Perfectly stored, sleeping giants that had been there for ages. One night soon after I arrived someone spotted one and asked for it. I had to warn them that I had no idea how it might taste but they went for it all the same, and it wasn’t cheap. It was amazing, though. It took an hour and a half to really develop its true colours but it was worth the wait. One of the many surprising and out of the blue things that make my job so interesting,’
Today the restaurant cellar has about 350 wines and Patrick hopes to enlarge that to about 400 soon. Each wine represented has about six bottles so it’s quite a few bottles to look after. He’s happy to see his babies drunk and not at all precious about who drinks them. ‘Hey if they have the taste to ask for it, and the money to pay for it, then good luck to them. Wine is to be drunk!’
Patrick is handing over day to day sommelier duties to the ‘very talented’ Carlo Lupri so that he can concentrate more on his Assistant Manager role. He will still be in charge of Sartoria’s excellent wine dinners and, of course, continue to write a wine column for London-eating. You can read his first one here.
