Think of Laos, Thailand or Bali and my guess is paddy fields rather than pinot noir is the image that springs to mind first.
he very idea of harvesting classic red wines in the tropics was pretty much unthinkable until very recently and for some purists it is still nothing short of heresy. [quote align=”center” color=”#b64736″] Yet Southeast Asian wineries and especially those in Thailand are starting to make waves in the wine world. [/quote]After all, it wasn’t all that long ago premium wine harvesting in Australia, South Africa and California was considered a flight of fancy. While producers in Bordeaux, Tuscany or Napa Valley are hardly trembling in their boots just yet, Thai Monsoon Valley and Bali’s Hatten Wines are gradually finding their way into dinner parties and restaurant menus in Australia, Europe and the United States.
These so-called ‘new latitude wines’ are also finding favour in their own back yard. There is a growing thirst for locally produced Asian wines in Japan, South Korea and even Vietnam, offering a good match up with umami-laden Oriental cuisine. Commercial wine making in Asia only goes back as far as 1995, yet amazingly there is already a pretty healthy ‘wine tourism’ market. Thai vineyard tours are perhaps just a natural progression from a well-loved foodie culture and the novelty factor plays a big part too. Seeing a ‘floating vineyard’ harvested by workers on small canoes or touring a wine estate by elephant is certainly not an everyday occurrence for the average wine buff.
Brand awareness of Thai wines is slowly but surely being raised right across the region from Hong Kong to Singapore. It has been quietly slipping under the radar as the big players concentrate all efforts on the huge potential of China, slated to be the world’s largest export market by 2015. So, are you likely to find a bottle of award-winning Siam Chatemp or Monsoon Valley next to the ubiquitous Chardonnay in Tesco or Sainsbury’s any time soon? Probably not; new upstart labels have a hard time breaking into the European market and there are all sorts of convoluted trade barriers to overcome. Yet don’t be too surprised to see it making an unheralded appearance at your favorite London Thai restaurant.
By Ray Montgomery
