Ask A Somm: Maxim Kassir, 108 Brasserie, Marylebone

By Chris Wilson

Published: 12 December, 2019

As well as working as a sommelier at the 108 Brasserie in The Marylebone Hotel, London, Maxim Kassir also oversees wine innovation for the site and its parent group The Doyle Collection. Here he shares his thoughts on low and no alcohol wine and how the on-trade can be more sustainable.

What are you views on low and no alcohol wines?

We want to get more into low abv or non-alcoholic drinks, and we’ve been trying to find a non-alcoholic wine for three years now. We’ve been tasting different wines from different producers but we’ve always been disappointed because they have been unbalanced without the alcohol and as a result tasted too sweet. We recently found Wild Life Botanicals; they are de-alcoholised still wine that’s infused with botanicals and carbonated. It doesn’t have too much residual sugar and is dry-ish. We will try it out during January when it’s going to be the ‘dry January’ addition to our menu alongside some with low abv cocktails.

How do you make your wine offering more sustainable?

Sustainability in the wine business across the hotel group is important and I’m looking at getting draft house white and red wines into the properties. Draft wine is very sustainable in terms of carbon emissions as a lot of the carbon footprint of wine is in the packaging; the bottle and the cardboard. If you eliminate that part we will be greener in terms of what we are serving and will eliminate some cost too. All this means we can serve wine at a better price and be greener. It’s a bit risky for us as some guests might not understand it, but we plan to have lots of training with our staff to be able to talk about it. I believe once we have got it right, the guests will be happy to drink draft wine.

What have you learnt this year which will help inform how you sell wine to customers in 2020?

The story of the wine sometimes sells the wine better than the wine itself! People are excited by stories and this makes them more and more likely to come out of their comfort zone and try something they’ve not tasted before, such as different grape varieties or wines from new places. With this in mind we are launching a Wines of the World collection in January. I have chosen 14 different wines from different regions; they are all different grape varieties and mostly made with indigenous grapes of the region or using traditional techniques. Every single wine will carry a story which feeds back into this customer desire to learn about the history of the wine.

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