It’s a long way from the classrooms of Grey to the opulence of the world’s tallest five-star hotel, a journey taken by PE’s Nicholas Murcott as he’s risen through the sommelier ranks in Dubai – taking South African wines along with him into a booming market for fine wines.
Nic, 38, is now the assistant food and beverage (F&B) director at the JW Marriott Marquis, the hotel group’s flagship luxury Dubai property with more than 1,600 rooms in its 72-storey twin towers reaching 355m high.
There he’s responsible for the hotel’s 15 restaurants and bars, each with its own dedicated sommelier and a listing of wines, beers, spirits and cocktails chosen to complement its food offering, encompassing Italian, French, Indian, Japanese and Thai restaurants, through to a Belgian beer café, exclusive cigar bar and one of Dubai’s top-rated steakhouses.Nic’s passion for wine and hospitality is unsurprising, since he grew up in and around the industry – dad Keith was a deputy general manager of Cape Town’s Mount Nelson Hotel and later became well known in PE as the affable and unflappable man at the helm of the Feather Market Centre, overseeing countless weddings, concerts, exhibitions and banquets in the 24 years before he retired last year.
Keith is also an avid wine-lover and for Nic the passion for wine started with “dad’s little tastes at Sunday lunch” and grew as he worked in various F&B management roles in Joburg after he’d qualified with his hospitality diploma from the Cape Town Hotel School.
“I was always into wine and then, through the positions I worked in, my enjoyment of wine became a work passion and I discovered I had a skill for it – selling, recommending wines, hosting wine-and-food dinners and so on,” Nic said.
So much so that when he applied in 2007 for an F&B job at the then soon-to-be-opened Raffles Hotel in Dubai, he was instead offered the position of head sommelier and charged with setting up the drinks menus for six restaurants and a Champagne bar.
That was a big leap, he says, into a market focused on luxury and extravagance, where liquor can easily make up more than half of a restaurant bill, and sommeliers have progressed to being called beverage directors as their role goes beyond wine into any kind of drink served with a meal.
In his first year in Dubai, Nic won the United Arab Emirates (UAE) Sommelier of the Year award and soon after was approached by the Burj al Arab – the seven-star hotel with its sail-like shape is an iconic image of Dubai – and seven interviews later, was appointed as head sommelier and beverage director.
“There I was, a boy from PE, in the world’s most luxurious hotel, in charge of a team of 14 sommeliers and a wine list of 2,100 wines!”
Just after he joined the Burj, the 2008 global market crash saw increased pressure to offer value and remain profitable, prompting him to turn to South Africa and other new world wine countries to “deliver better quality at lower prices”.
That saw Simonsig Kaapse Vonkel become the first non-Champagne bubbly to appear on the Burj’s wine list and diners being offered the likes of Meerlust Rubicon as the house wine by the glass.
“I consider myself an ambassador for South African wine in the UAE, and I’ve been fortunate to be able to bring the best of SA wine into a developing market focused on quality and extravagance. South Africa is the most exciting country that we could be bringing into this market,” he says.
Flying the South African wine flag high is not a big ask, he says, pointing to growing international recognition from leading critics and – the most positive development – the local industry becoming more region-specific, identifying the best areas for specific cultivars and focusing strongly on those.
Currently on holiday in the Bay with his Indonesian wife Soesana and their children, Izabella, 5, and Calum, 2, he’s been enjoying exploring the thriving local craft beer and artisan gin scene – and travellers to Dubai may well soon see some of those South African products on menus there too.
Sam Venter’s Vine Time column will be back next week.