Vanya Filipovic & Alex Landry

MON LAPIN’S WINE LIST is deeply personal. That isn’t an empty platitude or a broad-sweeping marketing statement. Sommeliers and co-owners Vanya Filipovic and Alex Landry are driven by an intense, unflappable interest in exploration. And relationships.

They make pilgrimages to find the most progressive producers in Arbois and Abruzzo, Languedoc and the Loire. They regularly check in at the most relevant wine bars in Paris. They visit winemakers — many represented by Filipovic’s Vins Dame-Jeanne imports — not once, but again and again, to understand how the wines taste in infancy, how they bloom in barrel and then come alive years down the line. “The first visit to a winery is always exciting and eye-opening. You absorb and understand so much,” says Filipovic. “But for me, it’s the follow-ups: understanding the ups and the downs of the season, the cellar, where a winemaker’s reflections lie, and what decisions they’re making. These aren’t details you have access to by recycling the same technical sheets from year to year.”

Deep-rooted, first-person knowledge allows Landry and Filipovic to run Mon Lapin’s wine program nimbly, albeit with a studied whimsy. They play matchmaker, digging through memories to find what will suit a guest’s mood. Bottles ascend from the cellar as the weather, menu and kitchen’s current proclivities command. Equally, wines arrive and are sent to rest — they’ll shine brighter in time or in a situation yet to occur.

New additions rotate at a steady clip, but there are always staples: grower Champagnes, the big names of new-wave Burgundy, and always some icons, be they irreverent like Emidio Pepe or emerging like Rajat Parr. Staff are trained as storytellers, armed with anecdotes and reflections from the sommeliers’ travels. Guests often leave with new infatuations.

The duo’s relentless exploration and advocacy for artisanal producers has influenced the whole country’s wine scene, which is one of the reasons they are our sommeliers of the year…again.

—KATE DINGWALL