BonAmb sommelier Enrique García Albelda – a life devoted to wine and emotion

The air in BonAmb’s wine cellar carries a quiet serenity. A cool, gentle stillness lingers between the wooden barrels, as if even time itself breathes more softly here. Along the wall, rows of bottles stand like soldiers at rest. Gently, BonAmb’s warm-hearted sommelier – a man with the calm passion of someone who truly lives his craft – lifts a bottle, studies the label as though greeting an old friend, and says softly: “The best wine is the one that moves you emotionally.” In that single sentence lies the essence of Enrique García Albelda’s life story, the sommelier of BonAmb.

The boy with the bottles

It didn’t begin with a sip, but with a collection. “I was twelve or thirteen,” he recalls. In his family home, wine hardly played a role. “My father would occasionally receive bottles as gifts, but they often sat on the shelf for months,” he says. “Only when my godmother came to visit from Paris would something special be opened — a sparkling wine with cheese. To me, that was pure magic.”

Relatives and friends who travelled were all given the same request: bring something back from that country, that region, that wine-growing area. The internet didn’t exist yet. The world reached him in the form of glass and labels.

He laughs at the memory. “I still keep many of those bottles, with the same respect I had when I first received them.” It’s an image that lingers: a young boy in a room full of bottles, dreaming of a world he had not yet tasted. “I wasn’t allowed to drink yet, but I could sense that something greater was hidden behind it – a world full of rituals, aromas, and stories.”

Soon he became ‘the odd child’ who devoured wine magazines instead of comic books. “I saw pictures of maîtres and sommeliers in elegant dining rooms, wearing white gloves and silver tongs. I thought: one day, I want to stand there myself.”

The path of a pioneer

When he decided to become a sommelier at nineteen, hardly anyone understood what that meant. “Outside the big cities, nobody really knew what a sommelier was,” he says. “Restaurants saw no reason to hire someone devoted solely to wine.” At that time, the heart of every restaurant was the kitchen, not the cellar.

“Because there were hardly any training opportunities in Spain, I went to France to work with small winemakers during the harvest,” he says. “That’s where I learned to understand wine — from the soil to the glass.”

Back in Spain, he enrolled in an intensive course: eight hours of written theory, practical tastings, and long days spent travelling by train. “I thought I wouldn’t have to study,” he says with a smile, “but I’ve never studied so much in my life. It was hard work, but I was happy.”

He remembers having to explain to his friends what he was actually doing. “For them, wine was something for the botellón — just a way to get drunk. They didn’t understand that it was a craft, a profession.”

There are two names he mentions with deep respect: Ricardo Ahullana, the maître who made him open his first bottle in front of guests – “I was shaking, but it changed me”, and Custodio Zamarra, “the most humble top sommelier Spain has ever seen.” From Zamarra he learned something that remains his credo to this day: knowledge only has value when it’s shared with humility.

BonAmb – where gastronomy and emotion converge

His path to BonAmb didn’t begin with a job application, but with curiosity. “At the time, I was also working as a food critic,” he recalls. “I visited BonAmb, which already had one Michelin star. The experience moved me, and I soon became personally involved in the project.”

It was 2016, the year BonAmb earned its second Michelin star. “We were drunk with happiness,” he says. “It was a rollercoaster of emotions — I had never experienced anything like it.”

Since then, BonAmb has become much more than a workplace for Enrique; it is a living organism where wine, food, and emotion merge. “The wineries we work with are all places I feel personally connected to,” he says. “They touch something inside me.”

As a sommelier, Enrique García Albelda doesn’t work at BonAmb alone. As Head Sommelier, he now leads a team of three sommeliers at BonAmb, together with colleagues from Casa Pepa. “We taste, take notes, and debate endlessly,” he says. “Every wine is stripped down to its essence, and only then do we decide whether it deserves a place in our restaurants.”

The art of maridaje

He speaks modestly about awards, as if they were secondary. Yet his track record is impressive: three-time nominee for Mejor Sumiller de España and winner of the 2018/2019 Copa Jerez together with the BonAmb team — a competition entirely devoted to maridaje, the art of pairing wine and food into a harmony of flavours.

“Those days were intense, full of adrenaline,” he recalls. “But above all, I felt proud — not because of the title, but because we, as a team, had achieved something truly exceptional.”

When he returned from the world finals, exhausted and jet-lagged, a surprise awaited him: his wife picked him up, but instead of driving home, she took him to a restaurant where family, friends, and colleagues were waiting. “I’ll never forget that evening — the joy, that feeling of connection. It was more beautiful than the trophy itself.”

The person behind the glass

Throughout his career, Enrique has served countless well-known guests, but his stories are never about status. They’re stories about connection.

“Guy Ritchie was one of those moments,” he says with a smile. “I heard him say that BonAmb was the best place in Spain to enjoy a Jerez. It gave me goosebumps.”

Another moment is more intimate. “When former Colombian president Pastrana came for lunch, I gave him a bottle of wine bearing his own name as a parting gift. He didn’t notice at first — I had wrapped it well. Later that evening, he called personally to thank me. Those are the moments that stay with you.”

They are small stories that tell something greater — about respect, humanity, and the power of a simple gesture.

The philosophy of a sommelier

“We don’t taste for ourselves,” Enrique says with emphasis. “We taste for our guests.”

There’s conviction in his voice. Every new wine project at BonAmb begins with tasting, noting, comparing — but never with ego. “It’s not about our own taste,” he says, “but about what the wine can bring to the guest’s experience. We want each glass not only to match the dish, but also the moment.”

His maridajes are stories in liquid form. “What we want to convey is a journey — of places, soils, grapes, emotions. A wine shouldn’t just harmonize; it should move you.” Big names interest him less. “It’s easy to pour expensive bottles, but the real beauty lies in discovering small producers, in finding hidden gems.”

The soul of the Costa Blanca

When the conversation turns to his own region, his tone changes — softer, more personal. “The wines of the Marina Alta have long suffered from their image,” he says. “People used to think we could only make sweet wines — moscatel, mistela, bulk wine.”

He shakes his head. “What a mistake. We have immense potential here — ancient grape varieties, unique soils, and a climate capable of producing real finesse.”

He names them with affection: Mas de Masos, Casa Agrícola by Pepe Mendoza, and Les Freses in Jesús Pobre. He especially praises Óscar Mestre — “passionate people like him, who respect the earth and give it a voice again.”

“The Costa Blanca,” he says, “is not just a region. It’s a state of mind — a blend of tradition and boldness.”

The future of wine

The world of wine is changing, and that gives him hope. “New generations have it easier than we did,” he says. “There are training programs, tasting schools, wine tourism, the internet… When I started, you had to discover everything on your own.” He smiles. “We were pioneers without a map, but because of that, we learned to take every step consciously.”

He looks with pride at how Spain has reinvented itself. “We are no longer the country of cheap wine. Today, Spanish wines are appreciated around the world for their character and quality — the result of years of dedication by winemakers, sommeliers, and enthusiasts who keep raising the bar.”

For Enrique, the future is not only technological or commercial, but cultural. “The real change lies in how we talk about wine,” he says. “In the past, wine was knowledge reserved for insiders, full of complicated words. Now we want everyone to understand it. The language of wine belongs to the people, not to the elite.”

The silence returns

At the end of the day, he often returns to the cellar. “Sometimes just to listen,” he says. “The wine is alive — you can almost hear it breathe.” He picks up a bottle, turns it in his hand, studies the colour through the glass. “Some bottles are like people,” he says softly. “They need time to come into full bloom.”

Enrique García Albelda, the fatherly proud sommelier of BonAmb, smiles, closes the rack, and walks upstairs, where the gentle murmur of the restaurant grows closer.

“The most beautiful wine,” he says as he closes the door behind him, “is the one that stays with you — because it lets you feel, for a moment, who you are.”

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This story is part of the The Sound Of The Costa Wine Special . All month long, the stories on CostaLifestyle are dedicated to wine — in collaboration with Grupo BonAmb.