Roberto Duran MS (second from left) and his team from Temper, Wine Room & Lounge. Photographed at ProWine Singapore on 21 April 2026.
Temper, Wine Room & Lounge was opened in September 2025 at the Mondrian Singapore Duxton Hotel.
Months later, Temper won not one but two Gold Stars at the Star Wine List of the Year Southeast Asia 2026 – for Best Long List and Best Newcomer List.
The wine list is curated by Spain’s first Master Sommelier, Roberto Duran, who serves as the Wine Director.
One of Roberto Duran MS’s signature innovations is a proprietary app that powers Temper’s 1,000+ label wine list.
“I hate it when I go to a place and the wine list is crossed out. Now, I can just change it like that. I finish a bottle of Champagne Blanc de Blancs? I automatically add a new wine by the glass, and the customer doesn’t see that something is missing,” Duran explains.
The digital list demands intense back‑of‑house work – every wine must be data‑entered before it even arrives – but the result is a seamless, ever‑up‑to‑date experience.
Judge Stephen Wong MW explained that, in the 2026 Southeast Asia competition, the Best Long List category took the most deliberation of all, due to the high standard across the region. Yet Temper stood out for its “depth and thoroughness, clear points of view, and an almost crippling diversity of choice across the world of wine.”
Another judge Ferran Centelles added that “Temper’s electronic wine list is also a pleasure to navigate, enhancing the overall experience.”
Roberto Duran MS leads a four-person team at Temper.
“The new crowd of wine lovers wants history, value, and a personal touch. The human factor is very important. It’s all of them behind me. The wine list is not only about the bottle – there’s a lot of operating procedure before it actually gets to the table,” he says.
With two Gold Stars already in hand, Temper now heads to the Star Wine List Global Final this June.
For Roberto Duran MS and his team, the real prize remains the same: “It’s the customer who has the right to say you are doing well.”
Roberto Duran MS (in front), Wine Director, leads a four-person team at Temper. From left, Allen Chong, Senior Sommelier; Yue Chow, Assistant Head Sommelier; Angela Chen, Sommelier; Elvira Masayeva, Assistant Head Sommelier.
Originally from Madrid, Roberto Duran MS won Best Sommelier of Spain in 2015. His “long journey” to achieving the MS title was prolonged further thanks to COVID, as he contracted the virus the day before he was due to catch a flight to take his tasting exam. When he finally took it, six months later, his palate had completely changed and so he failed, of course. It took 6 years to make it from his first attempt at one of the exams in 2019, to finally passing all sections in 2025.
