“You can hardly find such a perfect product as wine, half made by the knowledge, experience and ability of humans and the other half by the weather or God or nature.”

Francesco comes from Rome, where his first job was at a famous wine shop, or Italian enoteca, called Cul de Sac. This “wine library” housed nearly 3,000 Italian wines, which Francesco spent six years tasting his way through.

“The difficulty with Italian wine is that there are nearly 850 indigenous grape varieties,” says Francesco. “So the only option you have to build up a comfortable knowledge is to taste, taste, taste and again taste, and write down, because if you don’t, you will forget.”

Francesco moved to London in 2005 and joined the wine team at Bluebird, before becoming a senior sommelier at The Ritz in 2008. In 2009 he was appointed head sommelier at Italian restaurant L’Anima and in January 2011 became head sommelier at Paternoster Chop House.