PORTLAND WINE WEEK 2024 FEATURE: SOMMELIER Victoria Barthelmes Of Central Provisions & Tipo
Sponsored by Buoy Local.
Introducing the Portland Wine Week Sommelier Showcase, brought to you by Buoy Local. Portland, Maine, may be a small city, but it has an outsized reputation for wine and food thanks to the talented culinary stars behind its mouth-watering menus. When it comes to wine, Portland is dominated by women wine professionals who work hard to bring you the best bottles from across the globe. This series spotlights 10 women Sommeliers pouring phenomenal wine all Portland Wine Week-long!
Victoria’S Portland Wine Week Events:
WEEKLONG: ROSÉ WEEK @ CENTRAL PROVISIONS
WINE LUNCH: OCCHIPINTI @ CENTRAL PROVISIONS
WEEKLONG: WOMEN WINEMAKERS OF ITALY @ TIPO
GRAND OPENING WOMEN IN WINE DINNER: WHO PAIRED IT BETTER? SPONSORED BY BANGOR SAVINGS @ FALMOUTH COUNTRY CLUB
Victoria Barthelmes greets us with a knowing smile inside Central Provisions, as Chef Chris Gould prepares a razor clam dish in front of the lighting and camera of our video team – we’re scribbling and shooting fast to keep up with his deft knife techniques. Calm and collected, she observes in the background as Chef’s razor clams steal the show. When it’s time to turn the spotlight on her, her cool, collected attitude is matched with a brilliant, wine-encyclopedia of a mind.
Victoria and Chef Gould collaborate seamlessly at both restaurants, while the cuisine at Central Provisions and Tipo tends to take center stage, the immaculately curated wine lists transcend both dining experiences. Victoria is able to switch between the needs and demands of the two restaurants and give each distinct restaurant its own bespoke wine list that supports and strengthens both food menus.
Victoria is Wine Director of Central Provisions, a James Beard Award-nominee for Best New Restaurant, and General Manager/Wine Director of Italian-inspired neighborhood favorite, Tipo. A graduate of The Culinary Institute of America, Victoria focused the beginning of her career in the kitchen in New York City’s Lincoln Ristorante under Chef Richard Capizzi and Johnathan Beno. On a visit to Portland, Maine, for the specific purpose of eating at Central Provisions, Victoria was immediately convinced that she needed to leave NYC and move here. A passionate wine lover, Victoria earned her first-level degree with the Court of Master Sommeliers in 2023. She’s proud to work in a city where so many of the wine menus and culinary arts are shaped by women — especially when she gets to celebrate this as a featured sommelier at the Grand Opening Women In Wine Dinner: Who Paired It Better? Sponsored By Bangor Savings. A veteran of this dinner, Victoria says, “What I enjoy most about Portland Wine Week is the opportunity to work with a bunch of other local women somms that on a day-to-day basis, I don’t typically get to collaborate with. We all join together for this opening dinner. There’s the sense of pride that everyone has for Portland, and for the other women who are working really hard in a predominantly male-dominated field.”
In a city with a dining scene as dynamic and renowned as Portland, Maine, it takes some serious prestige to stand out among this constellation of culinary stars; but the combined talents of Victoria and co-owners Chef Chris and Paige Gould have ensured that Central Provision and Tipo put Portland on the map of top culinary cities worldwide. This Portland Wine Week, you have many opportunities to experience something truly special from the restaurant team.
“We're super excited to celebrate the seventh annual Portland Wine Week!” says Victoria, who is thrilled to host Tipo’s Women Winemakers of Italy weeklong special, and a signature Rosé Week special taking place at Central Provisions from June 11-16. The highlight of their Portland Wine Week event line-up? An unmissable headline event on June 13: “We'll be offering a very small 20-person Occhipinti Wine Luncheon at Central Provisions, featuring an array of special, hard-to-get allocated Ariana Occhipinti wines made from her single contradas in Sicily.” Winemaker Arianna Occhipinti’s name graces just about every women winemaker list in the world, and over the years she has climbed to stratospheric fame. Beginning her foray into wine at the age of 16 with an introduction by her uncle Giusto Occhipinti, whose COS wines are undisputedly amongst the best of Sicily, Arianna Ochipinti’s wines express the quality of the terroir of each vineyard. Each wine is made in small batches from small, choice lots, making them highly desirable yet hard to come by. Lucky for you, Victoria and her team have the connections to bring these exclusive bottles right to your table for this indulgent wine lunch.
So, what can guests expect? “Chef Chris Gould and I will be talking about our recent trip to the Occhipinti vineyards, where we got to taste a variety of her single contrada wines.” Inspired by their trip to Sicily, Chef Gould and Victoria are delighted to pair these rare, small-batch wines with Chef Gould’s oh-so-memorable cooking. “We'll start with her SP 68 Bianco, which is named after the path that leads up to the Occhipinti vineyards, and then move into a selection of her single contrada wines: the Vino di Contrada BB and the Vino di Contrada PT. Finally, we’ll savor the deliciously dry Siccagno. These are really small production wines, made on less than one hectare estates, that she bottles differently every year. So there's definitely bottle variation, but the bottles that we'll be drinking are the same ones that we got to taste with her on our trip to Sicily.”
“There are a lot of similarities between how Occhipinti makes wine and how Central Provisions approaches food,” says Victoria. “We care a lot about sourcing local ingredients that have been farmed sustainably and organically – and Ariana Occhipinti does all those same things at her vineyard. When you visit her vineyards, you drive up this long, narrow driveway surrounded by orange groves and beehives. Then you pull up and she's got all of these trees and stunning gardens that fill the space. Instead of flower gardens, her house is surrounded by vegetables and produce. Chef Gould has stunning gardens that go right up to his house, full of vegetables and produce that we use here at the restaurant. It feels really good to know that Ariana Occhipinti has the same stewardship for her land and her property that we try to emulate at Central Provisions and Tipo.”
If you miss your seat at the Occhipinti Luncheon, there are still ample opportunities to connect with Victoria’s curated wine selections throughout Portland Wine Week. In what has become an annual tradition, Victoria loves to use Portland Wine Week as an excuse to kick off summer at Central with a weeklong celebration of rosé wines. “We're going to be doing our rosé takeover, at Central Provisions during Portland Wine Week, which has been a tradition since the restaurant opened. All of our glass pours will be rosés, varying from really light and delicate to really dark and complex.”
Across Back Bay on Ocean Avenue, Tipo offers a local’s perspective of Portland. “We will be doing a Women Winemakers of Italy Dinner at Tipo with glass pours continuing throughout the week,” says Victoria. She will curate a selection of women-made wines designed to perfectly complement Chef de Cuisine Nick Bianco’s creative and ever-evolving menu of Italian-inspired plates, including woodfired pizzas with delightfully oven-blistered crusts and inventive plates like Chianti-braised short rib, rye cavatelli, and Concord grape crostini.
Between Italian dishes at Tipo, Sicilian wines at Central, and pink wine flowing all Portland Wine Week-long, there’s a feast of delights for you to enjoy from June 10-16. Make sure you’re in Portland this June to experience the abundance of talent that defines these two restaurants and their teams, and get ready to sample delicious wines that Sommelier Victoria Barthelmes describes as: “Delicious. Adventurous. Challenging. Sustainable. Evolving.”
