The vivacious Josephine Gutentoft performs front-of-house and sommelier duties at Makaron, winner of the Boschendal Style Award, at Majeka House in Stellenbosch. Hailing from Sweden, Josephine has spent the past 10 years gaining experience in top-end restaurants, hotels and wineries in her home country as well as in France, Australia and South Africa. We chatted to her about wine lists, tips and favourites.

What are the elements of a good wine list?
Quite a few elements are important, but most of all it’s the diversity and the pricing. You can have an amazing list, but if it’s just in one price category then it’s useless. It’s also important that the layout and the order of the wines is right. The one thing that most wine lists lack is consistency.

What are the challenges of creating a great wine list?
There are a lot of challenges, since it’s not merely a list of wines. There must be some interesting reading or tasting notes, and a nice layout to make the guest want to browse through it. It’s also important to keep up with vintages and update it if a wine changes its name.

How do you know once it’s complete?
My wine list is never complete! Gosh, there are so many amazing wines out there. But you have to think about what kind of establishment it is and what you need. It’s important to balance between traditional and new age wines.

There is a perception that sommeliers tend to recommend expensive wines. It this true?
Yes, unfortunately. This is why South African guests in particular are afraid to have the sommelier assist them. I always recommend one style of wine in different price categories, but there’s a reason why certain wines are more expensive: the crop is smaller; staff are better paid because they have more knowledge; or there is hand-sorting of the grapes. Perhaps the grapes are organically farmed, or the bottle and cork could be of higher quality… The list is endless. But I want people to drink as good a wine as possible.

How can diners best make use of the sommelier’s services? i.e. How does the model guest behave in your restaurant?
The model guest – I like that! They order something to drink while they browse through the menu and wine list. It’s customary in SA to order a bottle of wine right away, but it’s difficult to do this when you don’t know what you’re going to eat. I’m not that strict on food and wine pairings, unless the guest asks for it, but I like to enhance the flavours of the wine and the food in small ways.

Could you share some of your favourite wine pairings? Which wines go beautifully with lamb, creamy pasta dishes, and chocolate fondant? 
In pairing it’s not the main ingredient that matters most of the time, it’s the way the food is cooked and what is served with it. In general, if a lamb rack is served in a traditional way with mint sauce, then you need to consider the freshness of the sauce and the ‘green’ character of the mint, which goes with a softer style like a matured cabernet franc with that slight mint character, and tannins and body to handle the meat.

For a creamy pasta with mushrooms, onions, garlic and bacon, you can do either red or white wine. A wooded chardonnay with a bit of smoky character works with the bacon, or a soft cinsault without a lot of tannins.

The perfect wine for a fondant is an aged straw wine, Signal Hill 2001. This would be an incredible combination! The nutty, raisin and chocolate character of the wine would match perfectly with the chocolate.

How did you first become interested in wine?
I tasted wine for the first time when I was 20. I didn’t like it until my wine nerd friends gave me an American cult wine to taste, and I thought, “If wine tastes like this, I would drink it every day!” After that, I studied culinary arts at university, not quite realising how much wine was part of the studies. It got me hooked!

What are your favourite local wines?
Hmm, that’s difficult – there are so many! I love the Swartland wines like A.A Badenhorst, The Sadie Family, Lammershoek, Craig Hawkins and Jurgen Gouws, but there are good producers everywhere. Watch out for Alheit Vineyards; amazing wines will come from them.

Your top five bottles for under R50?
Pegasus Cinsault, Meerkat Chenin Blanc, Kleine Zalze Chenin Blanc, MAN Chenin Blanc and The Winery of Good Hope Shiraz.

Where do you like to eat in SA? (And overseas?)
I like to eat at Bizerca in Cape Town, or Nobu for a real treat, but favourites in the winelands include Babylonstoren, Reuben’s in Franschhoek and Pane e Vino. Overseas, I love Barcelona. There are so many amazing restaurants there. Cinc Sentits is one of my favourites, but there are many hole-in-the-wall places that are awesome, too. In Gothenburg, Sweden, I love Kock och Vin.

Do you have any favourite delis, food markets or wine stores?
I like to go to the Slowmarket in Stellenbosch, I love the coffee at Espresso Lab at the Biscuit Mill and at Bean in Love in Paarl. La Cotte wine shop in Franschhoek is always a favourite; they don’t have everything, but there’s always an interesting selection. I buy most of my wines when I’m visiting wine farms.

Any exciting plans for the wine list at Makaron?
Yes, loads! A bigger selection, more variety, some verticals and new exciting stuff that no one knows about yet. I have already started, so come and see…

Want a sneak peek at the food? Check out our gallery of Makaron's dishes.