Sommelier Diana D’Urso: “A good wine on a restaurant list should cost at least around 40 euros”

Diana D’Urso prefers working behind the scenes. “There are people who handle exposure well, and others who prefer to stay in the background and do things properly,” she says, placing herself firmly in the second group.

That understated approach contrasts with a career spent alongside some of Spain’s best-known chefs, including Ferran and Albert Adrià, Carme Ruscalleda, Raül Balam and Rafa Zafra. D’Urso now works as sommelier at Ramón Freixa Atelier in Madrid, a restaurant that earned two Michelin stars just five months after opening. Its cellar contains around 800 references.

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There are people who handle exposure well, and others who prefer to stay in the background and do things properly.

Wine was part of her daily life from childhood. Born in Salerno and raised between Salerno and Avellino, she grew up among the Taurasi, Greco di Tufo and Fiano di Avellino denominations. Her maternal grandfather worked in hospitality, her mother’s family traded wine, and her father combined a business career with professional sommellerie as a hobby. “There was always good wine at home, always,” she recalls.

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There was always good wine at home, always.

Although she studied economics, marketing and art history, she decided at 24 to invest her inheritance in a restaurant. That decision began her formal development as a sommelier. She says art history helps her express wine’s poetic and romantic side, while economics keeps her focused on the practical realities of trade, pricing and profitability.

For D’Urso, wine cannot be reduced to pleasure or passion. Growing up, she watched small producers struggle with vineyards, difficult weather and increasingly scarce resources as fewer people wanted to work in the countryside. “Wine is sacrifice,” she says. “Beyond the beautiful side, the enjoyment and the passion, it is sacrifice.”

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Wine is sacrifice. Beyond the beautiful side, the enjoyment and the passion, it is sacrifice.