The people behind Barcelona's wine lists: 12 sommeliers shaping the city
Wine lists at Barcelona's top restaurants are usually invisible. Behind every recommendation is a person who spent months tasting and years building the cellar you didn't know existed. Here are twelve who shape what the city drinks right now: industry-award winners, multi-venue consultants, sake specialists, and multi-generational family stewards. Ordered by professional authority, not by restaurant rank.
Wine lists at Barcelona's top restaurants are usually invisible. You sit down, someone asks if you'd like a recommendation, you say yes, a bottle arrives. Behind that exchange is a person who spent months tasting, weeks pouring at suppliers' tables, and years building the cellar you didn't know existed.
Sommeliers get credited less than chefs, partly because the job is harder to photograph. Here are twelve who shape what Barcelona drinks right now. The list is ordered by professional authority (awards, tenure, pedigree, consulting reach), not by restaurant ranking. The aim is to surface the people behind the bottles.
The 12 sommeliers, by professional authority
1. Ferran Centelles, 7 Portes 2. Bernat Voraviu, Alkimia 3. Joan Carles Ibáñez, Lasarte 4. Tamae Imachi, Dos Palillos 5. Xavi Nolla, Eldelmar, Nuara, Público 6. Patricia Sierra, Granja Elena 7. Stephanie Kippes Espinoza, ABaC 8. Núria Gironès, Ca l'Isidre 9. Manuel Simões, La Taverna del Clínic 10. Rona Yamashita, Yashima 11. Albert Señor Casamitjana, Quirat 12. José Martínez, Via Veneto
1. Ferran Centelles, 7 Portes
Centelles is a Spanish contributor on JancisRobinson.com and Drinks Director at elBullifoundation, Ferran Adrià's research project. The credentials stack: WSET Diploma, Court of Master Sommeliers Advanced, Ruinart Best Sommelier in Spain (2006), Spanish National Gastronomy Award (2017), three books on wine and food pairing, Regional Chair for Spain at the Decanter World Wine Awards.
His work at 7 Portes is curation, not floor service. The restaurant has its own house wines, Black Wine (a DO Montsant red blend) and White Wine (an organic 100% Xarel·lo from DO Penedès). Both wines are selected in collaboration with him. Labels were drawn by Milton Glaser, the designer behind the "I ♥ NY" logo.
You can't book a table and ask for him. He's not on the floor. But if you've ever had house wine at 7 Portes and thought "this is better than house wine should be," now you know why.
2. Bernat Voraviu, Alkimia
Voraviu (sometimes misspelled Vilarrubia in older sources; Voraviu is correct) was head sommelier at Azurmendi, Eneko Atxa's three-Michelin-star restaurant in Larrabetzu, before moving to Alkimia in 2019.
He doesn't only pour wine, he also makes it and imports it. Ex Occidente is his own winemaking project from his home region in Catalonia, working with native grapes and ancient vines.
He worked a harvest in the Loire Valley at nineteen, and later worked at Monvinic, then at the Ritz-Carlton Canary Islands with Martín Berasategui, before landing at Alkimia, where he runs the cellar for Jordi Vilà. His Instagram bio puts the order plainly: "Timonero en @ithaca_wines. Head somm en @alkimiarestaurant." Importer first, sommelier second.
3. Joan Carles Ibáñez, Lasarte
The Michelin Spain Special Award for Service goes to one person a year. In 2024 it went to Ibáñez. He's Director de Sala at Lasarte and runs the sommelier work.
He spent twenty years at El Racó de Can Fabes in Sant Celoni under Santi Santamaría (Catalonia's first three-Michelin-star restaurant) before joining Martín Berasategui's Lasarte in 2011.
The Lasarte wine list is a sewn, book-format list that, per D.O. Cava, opens with sparkling wines and puts Cava first.
He's writing a book titled A quién le sirva. The longer Cava Dialogues interview is the best read on how he thinks about service.
4. Tamae Imachi, Dos Palillos
Tamae is director and sommelier at Dos Palillos, in El Raval, where Albert Raurich leads the kitchen.
Her project sits within the restaurant: a separate eight-seat sake bar with its own à la carte format, carrying more than forty Junmai-quality (pure rice) sake references organised by structure across aromatic, balanced, structured, ripe, sweet, and special. The menu is decided by her.
In a recent interview she put the global sake market in plainspoken terms: "As happens in the West with wine, sake consumption among young people in the East isn't taking off, so they're looking for new markets." The restaurant describes the sake bar as unique in Spain and one of the few in Europe.
Dos Palillos was the only restaurant in Catalonia promoted to two Repsol Soles in the 2026 guide. Most of the press credits Raurich's kitchen. The wine and sake side, run by Tamae, gets less attention.
5. Xavi Nolla, Eldelmar, Nuara, Público
Most career sommeliers tie themselves to one cellar. Nolla works the opposite model: he's the sommelier behind three Barcelona restaurants — Eldelmar, Nuara, and Público. Eldelmar (the Torres brothers' seafood restaurant at Port Olímpic) carries more than 400 labels, leaning Mediterranean and Atlantic. Nuara's list is around 100 references, about 80% Spanish, with Champagne and Burgundy in the mix, delivered to your table on an iPad. Público is the Enric Granados restaurant where ARA found him co-leading a sparkling wine tasting.
He produces his own wine label, Vins de la Memòria, launched in 2018 to revive pre-1970s Catalan and Spanish styles across DO Terra Alta, DOQ Priorat, Alella, Empordà, and Roussillon. He's a credentialed Sherry Educator and runs enoAula, his own wine-education program. At Barcelona Wine Week 2025 he moderated a session called "Sommelier's Word: Stories of Wines and People."
He's quotable on the Catalonia / Rioja-Ribera dynamic: "In restaurants the wines sold are Riojas and Riberas del Duero, which are from Valladolid."
6. Patricia Sierra, Granja Elena
Patricia Sierra started at Granja Elena at twenty-three. Seventeen years later, in 2026, the Academia Catalana de Gastronomia i Nutrició named her Premi Cap de Sala, the Catalan industry's annual recognition for dining-room and sommelier work specifically. The award caught up to what she'd been doing.
Granja Elena is the family restaurant on Passeig de la Zona Franca in La Marina del Port (Sants-Montjuïc), founded in 1974 by her parents Olga Calvo and Abel Sierra. The current generation runs it three-handed: brother Borja in the kitchen, Patricia in the dining room, brother Guillermo at the bar.
The wine list runs to about 300 references plus 100+ spirits, kept on an electronic format that updates as bottles change. Around 30% of the list is natural wine, with an additional selection of organic and biodynamic bottles. The producers Patricia favours share, in the restaurant's own framing, "personal projects, wineries that really care about the quality of their wines, respectful viticulture and wines with character and personality."
The restaurant's tagline is alta cocina de barrio, haute cuisine of the neighbourhood. The Cap de Sala award recognises decades of family sala work.
7. Stephanie Kippes Espinoza, ABaC
Stephanie Kippes Espinoza came to wine late. Bolivia-born, raised in Galicia, she studied Film while working as a waitress and bartender. A trip to Porto in 2017 stirred her curiosity. She earned a WSET Level 3 Diploma, joined ABaC during the pandemic, and stopped splitting her time: "I couldn't divide my energies anymore." She's now Head Sommelier at Jordi Cruz's three-Michelin-star restaurant on Avinguda Tibidabo, with a cellar of over 2,500 references.
Cava is her stated passion. "I love Cava. I give it a lot of importance on the ABaC wine list," she told D.O. Cava in May 2024. She rejects Cava-versus-Champagne comparisons outright: "It's like making you choose between Verdejo or Sauvignon Blanc." The ABaC list spans long-aged Cavas, Champagne, Rioja, Priorat, Penedès, Burgundy, Bordeaux, New World, small-producer bottles, natural wines, and ancestral sparklings.
8. Núria Gironès, Ca l'Isidre
Ca l'Isidre opened in 1970 in El Raval, founded by Isidre Gironès and his wife Montserrat Salvó. Núria is their eldest daughter, took over management in 2017, and now runs the restaurant in three roles: chef, sommelier, and pastry chef. She trained in hospitality and worked with Alain Ducasse. She holds the title Dame Chevalier de Champagne.
The walls hold original works by Miró and Dalí. The guest book over fifty-five years includes King Juan Carlos and Queen Sofía (who dined together on 19 May 1985 with Jordi Pujol; the king ordered cabrito al horno, the queen had lenguado meunier), Woody Allen (who ate there on 27 November 2024), Federico Fellini, and Salvador Dalí.
Núria has been honest about the hours: "The day I work the least is fifteen. I'm one of those who is always in my business." Signature dishes include croquetas de jamón ibérico and her babà al ron with cream.
9. Manuel Simões, La Taverna del Clínic
Manuel and his brother Toni opened La Taverna del Clínic in 2006 next to Hospital Clínic, where their father Pepe already had a bar a few steps away. The Simões family is Galician; the Portuguese surname traces upstream. Toni runs the kitchen and was named Best Young Chef of Catalonia in 2014 by the Catalan Academy of Gastronomy; Manuel was the sommelier and dining-room manager in the early years.
He's a Caballero de la Champagne and Taittinger Ambassador in Barcelona. The origin story is good: he noticed unusual cufflinks on a customer (Clovis Taittinger himself) bearing a Templar-knight design, asked about them, and ended up invited to Château de la Marquetterie in the Champagne region. He came back, expanded his sommelier studies, and specialised in Champagne.
It has held a Repsol Sol since 2015. Galician wines are well-represented alongside the Champagne focus.
Manuel had to step down for health reasons, and Toni has since taken on the wine too.
10. Rona Yamashita, Yashima
Rona Yamashita was named a Sake Samurai in 2019 by the Sake Samurai Association, the recognition arm of Japan's Junior Council of the Sake Brewers Association. The registry shows Rona as Spain's only Sake Samurai recipient.
The Yamashita family runs three Japanese restaurants in Barcelona. Rona has run the family's Yamashita Group, which operates three Japanese restaurants in Barcelona including Yamadori and Yashima, since 2015.
Rona's training routes through Glion University in Switzerland, the Hyatt Regency in Palm Springs (California), and the three-Michelin-star Ryugin in Tokyo, before returning to take the family business. The brewery Rona champions most is Masuizumi in Toyama Prefecture; meeting the Masuda family was the hook: "When I visited Masuizumi, I tried some sake that was so delicious that I became hooked."
The bigger pitch Rona makes is for pairing: "Japanese sake goes really well with Spanish food." The Yashima list is structured to test that case, with sakes that pair against jamón, paella, and seafood carpaccio.
11. Albert Señor Casamitjana, Quirat
Señor is the sommelier at Quirat, inside the InterContinental Barcelona.
Quirat sits inside the InterContinental Barcelona at Plaça Espanya (Sants-Montjuïc, not Eixample) and holds a Michelin star under chef Víctor Torres. The wine list is centred on Catalan producers. Wine Is Social described his approach this way: "Albert has built a brilliant wine list, centered on Catalan producers who work the vineyard with head and heart… his way of recommending surprises by how natural it turns out: without technicalities, with criteria and much sensitivity."
12. José Martínez, Via Veneto
José Martínez González has spent more than two decades at Via Veneto, working his way into the sommelier role.
Via Veneto opened on 30 April 1967, founded by entrepreneur Oriol Regàs. The kitchen has held one Michelin star continuously since 1975, the oldest continuously held star in Spain, shared only with Arzak. The dining room was Salvador Dalí's regular spot. Other past diners include Richard Nixon, Gabriel García Márquez, and Carlos Barral.
The cellar holds north of 5,000 references, mixing rare bottles with contemporary minimal-intervention wines. José manages it alongside maître Javier Oliveira, who himself won the 2021 Best Dining Room Manager Award from the Catalan Academy of Gastronomy. After twenty-four years downstairs with the bottles, José is the one who knows what to bring up with it.
Also worth knowing
Mar Gómez (Lluerna), Quico Arza (Petit Comitè Gaig), Eduard Ros (Bisavis), Mathieu Pérez (Sra Dolores), Yolanda Villegas (Viblioteca), Carles Pérez de Rozas (Berbena), Adelf Morales (Topik), Anna Yébenes (Uma), Janina Rútia (Monocrom).
The pattern
Read the twelve in a row and the pattern is this: the most interesting wine work in Barcelona right now isn't happening because of the restaurant's name on the door. It's happening because of the individual at the cellar. A Bolivian-born Galician running a 2,500-reference list at a three-star. A Japanese sake specialist who built a 40-bottle Junmai program inside an Asian-tapas room. A Catalan importer-sommelier-winemaker who sees pouring as the third of three jobs. The cellars matter less than the obsessions behind them. Eat at a restaurant where you know the sommelier's story, and the wine list reads differently before you've even ordered.
Find them online
LinkedIn: Joan Carles Ibáñez · Stephanie Kippes Espinoza · Albert Señor Casamitjana · Manuel Simões · Xavi Nolla
Methodology
Ordered by professional authority specific to sommelier work (industry awards, tenure at landmark restaurants, multi-venue consulting reach, specialist depth in categories like sake or sherry, published wine writing), not by the underlying restaurant's Guidavera score.
People
Albert Raurich, Jordi Vilà, Martín Berasategui, Jordi Cruz, Víctor Torres, Borja Sierra, Toni Simões, Núria Gironès
Restaurants mentioned
Frequently asked questions
Who is Ferran Centelles?
Ferran Centelles is a Barcelona sommelier and Drinks Director at the elBullifoundation, a regular Spanish contributor on JancisRobinson.com, and Regional Chair for Spain at the Decanter World Wine Awards. He's also published three books on wine and food pairing.
How big is the wine cellar at Via Veneto?
Via Veneto's cellar holds over 5,000 references. José Martínez has managed it since the early 2000s, alongside maître Javier Oliveira (Catalan Academy of Gastronomy's Best Dining Room Manager 2021). The restaurant opened in 1967 and has held one Michelin star continuously since 1975, the oldest in Spain.
Who is Spain's only Sake Samurai?
Rona Yamashita of Yashima, named a Sake Samurai in 2019 by the Sake Samurai Association. The Yamashita family runs three Japanese restaurants in Barcelona, including Yamadori and Yashima. Rona champions Masuizumi brewery from Toyama Prefecture and argues sake pairs naturally with Spanish food like jamón, paella, and seafood carpaccio.