Nicolas GEMELINE

Sommelier : 1 restaurant

Presentation

"I don't consider myself a sommelier because I don't have the diploma, but I've been tasting wines for thirty-five years." Nicolas Gemeline "fell" into the glass of a nuits-saint-georges at the age of 19, and was hooked. In the mid-1990s, the young man set off to meet the winemakers of France and attended the Grains Nobles school. There, he rubbed shoulders with critics Michel Bettane and Bernard Burtschy, "I tasted thousands of bottles presented by the winemakers themselves."

In the early 2000s, while working as a graphic designer in an advertising agency, he created a website dedicated to wine tasting. Guillaume Barthélémy from Vintegraal contacted him to organize "festive" tastings for companies and neophytes. These took place at L'Atelier des Chefs and the Shangri-La Paris, for ten years or so - "where I discovered the restaurant business".

With his colleague Charlotte Giraud, who is passionate about gastronomy, he took the plunge in 2016 to take charge of the wine list at Cazes, a tapas and creative cuisine restaurant in the 18th arrondissement of Paris.

When the establishment closed, the duo took a new step by opening their own restaurant in 2018: Les Éléphants. Nicolas Gemeline is in charge of the dining room and offers over 900 references, including natural and biodynamic wines, a particularly atypical offering for this kind of "buddy" restaurant.

B. G.

Biography & Awards

1970 Naissance à Villecresnes

1989 Première dégustation d’un verre de nuits-saint-georges : une révélation

2004 Entrée chez Vintegraal

2016 Première place de sommelier dans un restaurant, chez Cazes, à Paris

2018 Ouverture du restaurant Les Éléphants, à Paris 17e, en association avec Charlotte Giraud