JOURNAL #2 Meet Ricardo Rodrigues, Portugal’s newly crowned top sommelier

At just 33, Ricardo Rodrigues (Ocean restaurant, Villa Vita) has just been crowned Portugal’s Sommelier Of The Year at the annual Revista de Vinhos awards. He tells us what it’s like remembering thousands of wine profiles, how he trains his palate, and what makes the Portuguese wine sector unique.  

Congrats! How does it feel to win the award?

Thank you! I was not expecting to win – past winners have been really good sommeliers, so it’s great to be part of this group. Fortunately, this was not a wine competition because I don’t actually like doing it, as they are so stressful – you have to be able to construct a wine profile in blind tastings and identify the grape, vintage, price range and quality level. You should be trained to identify around 60 wine profiles from all over the world.

What does it take to become a top sommelier? 

You have to want perfection – to keep learning, training and working hard to always improve. Every table you serve is different, and if there’s a question someone has that you can’t answer, you go home and study again. But the more you study wine, the more you realize how much there is to know, so the most important thing is that you enjoy it.

In terms of your palate and nose, you need to have some skills, but everyone can be trained. We do a lot of training at Ocean to keep us tasting and smelling different things. I practice with little boxes of aromas, the wines themselves, and do blind tastings to keep pushing myself. 

You also have to memorise a lot. Ocean has 750 wines, but other places can have thousands – Celler de Can Roca in Spain for example has 6,000 wines on its list. When I worked at 67 Pall Mall in London, we had an extensive wine list with more than 4,000 different wines.

How do you remember so many wine profiles?

You build memories. When you taste and discuss a wine, the flavours and aromas lead you to your memories – it’s different for everyone, for example it might remind you of a scene with your grandmother, although of course you wouldn’t say that to a customer! But the more wines you taste, the more memories you build and so it becomes easier to describe a wine. 

What do you think of MdQ’s wine? 

MdQ’s wine was a surprise for me – its wine is new, but also part of our history. It’s really one of the highest quality in the Algarve, and they have set the level very high. The wider project too – the property’s history, the family, the passion behind it all – it’s the sort of place you go and don’t want to leave. Filipe and Theresa are such great people and hosts. 

With winemaker Joana Maçanita’s help, everything they have been producing is a different way of thinking. One of the reason’s MdQ’s wine is such high quality is the vineyard’s old vines. Old vines are incredible, they give such richness. 

What makes Portuguese wine different?  

Portuguese wine is doing very well at the moment. I’ve been working with wines for 10 years and there is a big difference in quality now. And we have great wine at a good price, including wines that are world-class. In general, wine is improving in the Algarve, because of a small group of producers who are open to trying new things and traveling. What makes Portuguese wine different though is the number of grape varieties – we have 300-400 varieties, so no particular country profile, but a huge diversity inside each region. 

What’s your wine list at Ocean like?

Since I became head sommelier at Ocean, I’ve reduced the wine list from 900 to 750 wines, but increased the quality. We do 80 wines by the glass. Last year we won the Wine Spectator Best Award of Excellence, which is the equivalent of a Micheline Star in wine – there are three levels and we are on the second. 

When I taste wines, I am always looking for the balance, complexity, the best value,  and how it makes sense for our wine collection. There are so many wines available at the moment that we have to be selective, although sometimes we want to buy all of the wines we taste. Currently we have about 400 portuguese wines on our wine list at Ocean Restaurant.

You can try Ricardo’s wine list at Ocean restaurant, Vila Vita Parc, Porches, Algarve. The fine dining restaurant has two Michelin Stars, and focuses on using local ingredients.