Matt Dulle: “I love off-vintage Grands Crus de Bordeaux”
A few days ahead of the start of the promotional tour of the 2022 vintage on the North American market (from 16 to 24 January 2025), Vintage met up with Matt Dulle, the Beverage director of the restaurant Spago, an institution in Beverly Hills boasting one of California’s greatest wine lists.
Hi Matt, you’ll be running a masterclass for the UGCB in Los Angeles, could you introduce yourself?
I am the beverage director of Spago, an institution on the Beverly Hills dining scene. I’m actually relatively new to L.A. I’ve been at Spago for about a year and a half but I’ve been in the restaurant industry for 25 years. I’m from the Midwest originally and I’ve worked in Saint-Louis, Chicago and then in Northern California for a while. At the start of my career, I had the good fortune to work for a private dining Club in Saint Louis when I began my career. Back then, we had great exposure to Bordeaux, so this region has always been important to me. Working at Spago, I realised that Bordeaux is coming back quite a bit. In fact, it’s one of our bestselling categories.
"I realised that Bordeaux is coming back quite a bit. In fact, it’s one of our bestselling categories".
Have you noticed that American customers have been coming back to Bordeaux wine in the last couple of years?
Yes, definitely. At least in California, and I think in New York too and in most big cities. Bordeaux has always done pretty well at Spago but we’ve been noticing how much it has been skyrocketing. It has almost replaced Burgundy [laughs]. I don’t know exactly why the trend happened but it’s quite impressive.
Speaking about your work at Spago, how do you build a world-class wine menu?
To me the quality of a wine list doesn’t depend on how big it is, on how deep it is but any given guest in a restaurant should find a bottle that suits them. Every bottle has to stand alone. That’s why I’m making a point to try every single bottle that I put on the menu. I treat them like heroes [laughs]. Every bottle is designed to make someone happy.
Coming back to Grands Crus de Bordeaux, what did you learn from them and what are your favourite wines?
These fine wines shaped my views on the importance of vintages. Vintages seem to rule the roost in Bordeaux, but frankly, I love off-vintage wines. 2003 is a great example, it has been neglected by some of the critics but it’s very distinctive and has produced some amazing wines. I was born in 1983 and I have been lucky enough to taste lots of bottles from my birth year because they were cheaper and more available than the 1982 for instance. These days, some of the best 1983 could rival the best 1982. Because of that, I love the vintages that are overlooked or forgotten.
What is your philosophy as a sommelier?
My main mission is to get people to try the wine before jumping to conclusions. I realise that when I was younger, I approached wine from a critical level and I decided to work differently because I was putting off my enjoyment. Since then, I’ve taken a more positive approach to each wine. Many people have tied their livelihood to this product - estate owners, winegrowers, people who work the land, distributors, negociants, etc. The least we can do is to pay tribute to them and say something positive about the wine. It’s a way to show respect to the work that has been done.
Do you have any fond memories of the 1983 that you want to share with us?
My brother and I are used to taking each other out for dinner for our birthdays. I remember that for my thirtieth birthday, he found a bottle of 1983 Château Mouton Rothschild! We had it, and I instantly fell in love with it!
Do you have a favourite appellation?
Without a doubt, Saint-Julien. It’s the appellation I recommend the most regularly to customers of the restaurant because it is the one which reminds me the most of the “new world”. For me it’s the perfect gateway to Grands Crus de Bordeaux for American customers. If I was with someone who enjoyed Californian Cabernet and who wanted to discover Bordeaux, I’d tell them to go straight to Saint-Julien.
Did you have the opportunity to visit Bordeaux recently?
I got the chance to travel to Bordeaux for the first time last year. It was absolutely amazing. We spent 7 days travelling around the vineyards. I had the opportunity to visit 75% of the Châteaux that are on my menu. The vintage that got everyone excited on that trip was the 2014. One of the big takeaways from my Bordeaux trip was that even though I had been selling it for so many years, I didn’t really know the place. When you meet the families who make these wonderful wines, you see the terroirs they come from, it’s so much more alive. You can see the humility and personality of the places and guess that of the wines, it’s great!