Douglas Blyde visits Richard Corrigan’s restaurant in Mayfair and speaks with award-winning sommelier Dmytro Goncharuk about creating a wine list that balances well-known producers with those a little off the beaten track. Taken from this year’s Wine List Confidential guide, now available to buy.
Described by Marina O’Loughlin as “a hunting lodge for chaps who’d combust in the countryside”, Corrigan’s of Mayfair takes the surname of three times winner of the BBC’s Great British Menu Richard Corrigan, whose restaurant empire also includes Bentley’s Oyster Bar and Grill, Swallow Street; Daffodil Mulligan, City Road; and Ireland’s Virginia Park Lodge.
Harking from Ukraine, head sommelier Dmytro Goncharuk (formerly of Hide) has been awarded Advanced Sommelier (Court of Master Sommeliers) and Best Sommelier of Ukraine.
Goncharuk, whose birth vintage is 1984 (from which he has enjoyed Château d’Yquem) has increased the selection of Bordeaux and Burgundy over his tenure, which might include Pontet-Canet by the glass and over-two-decade-old Coche-Dury Meursault, while introducing less famous wines such as still Kentish Pinot Meunier, sparkling Canadian ice wine and unfortified Palomino.
Of the latter, being Bodegas Cota 45 Miraflores UBE from Sanlúcar de Barrameda, Goncharuk rates the wine’s hint of oxidation in an otherwise flinty, mineral, salty profile, for the freshness it brings to the starter of hand-dived Orkney scallop with cep, salsify, chive and vin jaune sauce by head chef Philip Kearsey (of The French Laundry and Waterside Inn). This is the antithesis of his least preferred range of wines, being old school “jammy Malbecs” and heavy Shiraz from the New World which brim with fruit but lack complexity. Port, too, is popular, with Goncharuk being the appointed pourer of the 18-litre bottle of Tawny.
Score: 89.7 Price: 85 Size: 91 Range: 91 Originality: 90 Experience: 91.5
To purchase a copy of the 2022 Wine List Confidential guide, click here.
