Chat Over Lunch: Claire Thevenot
Wine detective and Master Sommelier, her relentless drive helps fill our favourite restaurants with some of their best and most interesting wines.
Chat Over Lunch was conceived from a desire to learn from someone that I admire. As part of celebrating a year of Professional Lunch, I was thrilled to sit down with Claire Thevenot, the founder of Vins Clairs, a wine supplier for an array of the UK’s top restaurants. When I made my original list of people that I wanted to invite for a chat, Claire was at the top. As it happened, I got to spend time with Tim Hayward, Nick Lander and Charlotte Ivers first, but I’m excited to share Claire’s story now.
We met for lunch at Stem & Stem, a brilliant, casual, wine-focused spot in the City with bright, light food. You can find all of the usual restaurant details at the bottom of the article.
Becoming a Master Sommelier is virtually impossible. There are fewer than 300 around the world. To achieve the qualification, candidates progress through a series of certifications, then prepare for and pass an exacting exam which includes elements on service, theory, and blind tasting. (The movie Somm, which follows 4 candidates through their preparations and exam, provides a pretty good sense of its difficultly and is wonderfully entertaining.)
Claire Thevenot was first ever French woman to pass the exam and become a Master Sommelier.
A few months later, Claire was named UK Sommelier of the Year. That competition required participants to complete “Tasks [that] included blind tasting, wine and cigar recommendations, correcting errors on a wine list and pouring a magnum of Champagne into 16 glasses ensuring that each glass was equal, no glass was revisited, nothing was spilt and the bottle ended up empty.”
Extreme levels of skill and memory? Tick. Extraordinary drive and determination to study and prepare? Obviously.
But there’s more to it. Both accolades require demonstrations of hospitality.
Claire told me about an earlier competitor in the UK competition who poured the last drops of his magnum of champagne perfectly into the fifteenth glass. Turning to the room full of judges, he pointed at the empty sixteenth glass and said, “That one is for the driver.” He received top marks, in spite of failing at the technical aspect of the test.
Claire is a judge in the UK Somm of the Year competition this year, and she is encouraging exactly this sort of personality from contestants.
Sharing lunch with her at Stem & Stem, it’s easy to experience that sort of wit and hard not to be in awe of her multitude of talents.
Claire grew up, the youngest of five siblings, on a cattle farm in the foothills on the west side of the Vosges Mountains. Wine lovers are more familiar with the east side, which overlooks the incredible wine-producing areas of Alsace. And Claire’s mother made sure that the house was regularly stocked with an interesting array of Alsatian bottles.
Claire’s older sister was the first into hospitality, becoming the head sommelier at a three Michelin star restaurant in Germany and a role model for Claire, who enrolled in catering school in the Jura at age 16, and worked a harvest in Beaujolais, “which got me hooked on wine. I was fascinated by everything going on in the vineyard and the winery.”
Claire discovered the wines of the Jura as well — varietals and styles that have become some of the hottest and most fashionable choices in the UK over the last few years, in part thanks to Claire’s diligence.
She soon earned entry to France’s top school for prospective sommeliers, in Tain Hermitage, the town at the foot of the great hill by the Rhone that’s home to some of the world’s finest wines.
“The teachers were wonderful,” Claire told me. The course lasts two years, with an intense 4 month practical over the summer, where the school’s working graduates invited the students to some of the world’s top restaurants. “The network among the graduates is the best of any school in the world. We help and support each other, and someone is always ready with an idea or even a job.”
Her training helped her build the techniques that she needed to enhance her memory for smell — absolutely essential for any great sommelier. “I store those smell memories in a drawer in my mind that I can access anytime.” She also learned she could trust her palate and discovered a memory gift that linked recall and note-taking. “I had to write notes and draw my own maps, but once I did, I could remember. And memory is everything.”
After completing the course in Tain, she moved to the UK in 2002 and joined the Hotel du Vin, working under wine legend Gérard Basset. She was soon head sommelier at the Winchester location.
After six years as a sommelier, she wanted to understand more aspects of the wine trade, so she took on a role at a major UK importer and wholesaler. In short order, she was supplying top restaurants across the country.
Claire has gift for discovering great producers who are often small, but she makes a point of looking for “nice, helpful people who will become real partners.”
It’s obvious that Claire is a trusted partner herself.
In 2022, in the shadow of the COVID pandemic, she decided to set up her own business, and Vins Clairs was born.
But she had very little capital and no one wine to sell. So she spent a week driving through France, starting in the Jura. She aimed to spotlight newcomers who were unknown in the UK. She found a lovely couple producing their first wine, all still in barrels, but her palate suggested that it held great promise. She took a risk, and it paid off.
Three years later, Claire represents an impressive array of producers. Virtually all are small. In many cases, Claire has started with them after their first or second vintage. And her portfolio increasingly transcends France — the Jura, Alsace, Champagne, Burgundy, the Rhone, and the Loire are all covered.
Perhaps more impressive is the list of restaurants who trust Claire to help shape their wine list.
I started buying wine from Claire a few years ago, and she was kind enough to sell to me even though I am definitely not a ‘trade’ customer. But over the years, she taught me a lot about her favourite wines and her producers. So when my wife and I arrived at 3-starred L’Enclume in the Lake District a couple of years ago, I took one look at the wine list and messaged Claire. “I think I see a lot of your wine on this list.” I was right. The same thing happened more recently at Moor Hall.
Some of her other restaurant partners include the Fat Duck, Core by Clare Smyth, Le Manoir, Ikoyi, the Ledbury, Noble Rot, Quality Wines, and Stem & Stem, where we were enjoying a wonderful lunch on a strangely sunny day in early March.
The temperature was warm enough that the nearby pubs were swarming with lunchtime drinkers, and the promise of spring made the restaurant feel extra buzzy.
Stem & Stem sounds like it should be odd — part flower shop and part restaurant. But on an early spring day, the greens, yellows and reds from the flowers amplified the effect.
And the food was excellent. My pheasant starter was wonderfully cooked and delivered fantastic meaty punch. Accompanying black pudding was a bomb of flavour.
The highlight was fish. Perfectly cooked and served with an outrageously herbaceous sauce, mussels, and sea veg. The whole dish was the flavour of green in a bowl.
From talking about green sauces and spring, we drifted into a discussion about natural wine. Claire agrees that the term is problematic, but her farming background drove her decision to embrace and advocate for wines that are biodynamic and made by producers with a real respect for the wider ecosystem in which they live, work, and make wine. “When I talk to new producers, I’m interested in understanding what they are doing to protect biodiversity.”
For example, one of Claire’s producers took steps to protect a nearby colony of endangered birds. They built nest boxes for the birds, and, when the population returned to healthy levels, the birds wound up protecting the grapes by eating pests that damaged the vines.
Still, Claire is worried about the future. In her most recent wine trip, she saw signs of impending economic challenges for producers. People are drinking less and buying a lot less. It’s harder to find good, affordable wine. And that was before the U.S. President threatened 200% tariffs on French wines.
In the UK, regulations are major problems. The UK’s idiotic (my word, not Claire’s) new system of assessing variable duties based on alcohol strength is creating a paperwork nightmare for every producer and importer. A new tax on packaging goes into effect on 1 April and will make everything yet more expensive. Compliance is difficult and heaps on costs. NI increases are creating a huge burden. One of her partners, the original Hakkasan in Hanway Place closed in February. Claire believes it will be one of many high profile closures in 2025.
On a more hopeful note, Claire has been a driving force in establishing the Collecteve, a collaborative all-female group of wine importers, who are working together to overcome these and other challenges. You can check out a full list of the participants here.
Claire is also excited about the Loire Valley. She told the IWSC that it is “the next big region in France, which is super exciting, and there are a lot of young winemakers rising up there. Sancerre Pouilly-Fumé is being completely transformed and the rules are being re-written.”
It’s not the only thing.
Claire herself has been a force transforming the wine landscape and re-writing the rules for the better. She has introduced the UK’s best restaurants to small winemakers producing first-rate wines, often in overlooked regions, and, as a result, she has made the dining experience better for all of us.
With her multitude of talent and determination, she will no doubt continue to do so for a long time to come.
Restaurant Details: Stem & Stem
Quick hit: Bright, fresh, and relatively light fair in the heart of the City.
Details: Booking advised. City / St. Paul’s.
Restaurant website. More on Instagram.
Find it on Google Maps. 12 Bow Lane, EC4M 9AL.
Thanks for reading this edition of Chat Over Lunch. Please feel free to share with friends and colleagues, and subscribe if you haven’t already.