Domaine Ponsot was established in 1872 by William Ponsot and nowadays is one of Burgundy's most revered and iconoclastic Domaines in Burgundy. Laurent Ponsot, the current proprietor of the winery was in Hong Kong for a special lunch pairing his wines with Chinese cuisine in The China Club. The rise in popularity of Burgundian wine in Hong Kong has seen a rapid increase in Burgundy wine consumption in the last six months and has meant that more and more winery owners are coming to the territory to show off their wines and show their versatility in Chinese food and wine pairing. Domaine Ponsot started to bottle whole harvest wines at the estate in the 1930's, a rare practice at the time, and now is idolised because of its Clos des Monts-Luisants and Clos de la Roche parcels. Of his wines M. Ponsot said. "Our wines are not made to be tasted; they are made to be drunk".
Domaine Ponsot has fabulous holdings in well placed parcels in Morey St. Denis and Clos de la Roche alongside holdings in Chambertin, Griotte Chambertin, Chapelle Chambertin, Charmes Chambertin, Clos de Vougeot, Chambolle Musigny Premier Cru Les Charmes and Morey Premier Cru Monts Luisants. A fully biodynamic winery, Domaine Ponsot has not even used sulphur dioxide since 1988 and is unique in its production of white wines made wholly from the Aligote grape, whose vines were planted over 100 years ago and are still producing fantastic wines to this day. Domaine Ponsot is also unique in that it can boast a huge 12 Grands Cru in its portfolio of wine, a feat that no other Burgundian wine producer can match. The Domaine never uses new oak barrels and M. Ponsot buys minimum five years old barrels from other well respected wineries he knows. The lunch attendees were treated to the Ponsot Morey St. Denis 1er Cru Clos des Monts Luisants Blanc 2006 paired with sautéed scallops and squid in X.O. sauce, followed by the Chambolle Musigny 1er Cru Les Charmes 2008 paired with sautéed fillet of garoupa and broccoli. Following this was sautéed diced beef filet with cashews nuts and dried chili paired with Morey St. Denis 1er Cru Cuvee des Alouettes 2007 and a classic roast Peking duck served with both the Griotte Chambertin Grand Cru 2008 and the Clos de la Roche Grand Cru Vieilles Vignes 2007. The pairings worked exceptionally well and showed Burgundy's diversity when it comes to pairing with local Chinese cuisine. The wines themselves are still very traditional in style and M. Ponsot admits he tries to stay away from modern trends in wine making and focuses on the expression of terroir and vintage and, overall the wines do represent fantastic quality and are a true represent a true reflection of Burgundian terroir. Domaine Ponsot wines are exclusively available from Altaya Wines in Hong Kong.
Contributed by Alasdair Nicol, TLN Editor – Hong Kong

 

Piper Heidsieck is one of the Champagne regions most iconic Champagne houses and was founded in 1785 by Florens-Louis Heidsieck in the village of Reims.

 

To this day the Champagne house still makes Champagne in the same style and to the same rigorous standards as implemented by M. Heidsieck himself more than 200 years ago.

 

Over the last 200 years the house has created some of the most novel bottle designs and has become synonymous with high quality brut Champagne and toasty, magnificent vintage champagne. To celebrate its 100th birthday in 1885 the house commissioned Carl Fabergé – jeweler to the Russian Tsar and creator of the famous Fabergé egg – to make a bottle of serious distinction. He came up with a bottle that was encrusted in diamonds, gold and lapis-lazuli (a light blue coloured ore) which was made in extremely low quantities and nowadays is near enough, if not, impossible to find.

 

In 1976 the house asked Van Cleef and Arpels to dress a special bottle for the Rare 1976. The bottle travelled the world from Paris and New York to Hong Kong and Tokyo, accompanied by armed guards and footmen.

 

To celebrate the recent releases of the Piper Heidsieck vintage 2004 and Rare 2002 Debra Meiburg, the famous Hong Kong Master of Wine, hosted some of the territory’s most prestigious sommeliers and trade professionals.

 

Debra Meiburg MW is a professional wine speaker and her “tongue-in-cheek” approach to talking about and tasting wine went down extremely well with the attendees, especially as she has a knack for putting young, up and coming sommeliers in the spotlight to foster their ongoing education.

 

Sommeliers from some of Hong Kong’s top hotels were joined by Nelson Chow, Chairman of the Hong Kong Sommelier Association, in tasting the full range of Piper Heidsieck Champagnes available in the territory.

 

The wines included the Piper Heidsieck Cuvée Brut NV, Cuvée Rosé Sauvage NV, Charles Heidsieck Brut Réserve NV and of course the vintage 2004 and 2002 Rare.

 

Debra extended her knowledge of the Champagne house, the terroir, the winemaking processes of the past and present and even made local wine expert, Chris Chow, Sabrage a bottle of Champagne (that is the art of removing the cork from the bottle with a rather large sword!)

 

Piper Heidsieck enjoys a large percentage of the Hong Kong Champagne market and is available from Telford International Company Limited.

 

Contributed by Alasdair Nicol, TLN Editor – Hong Kong

With tongue in cheek my father has for many years referred to his daily red wine as "heart medicine."  

 

Because I am a red wine drinker I've always chosen to believe that red wine possesses positive health benefits - that the anti-oxidents and polyphenols in the skins are secretly doing good chemical works in my body, even if they are staining my teeth! 

 

A recently published article in the Journal of Women's Health points to evidence that moderate red wine consumption could possibly lower the risk of breast cancer .  Alcohol consumption on the whole is considered to increase the risk of breast cancer but the study indicated that resveratrol in red wine slows the growth of breast cancer cells. 

 

Many drugs used to treat/manage breast cancer are aromatase inhibitors (AIs) aimed at blocking the effects of estrogen.  These AI's occur naturally in grapes, but only in red wine as it has resveretrol from the skins (not in white wine since it does not leach out these compounds in the finished wine).   Researchers found that cells treated with resveretrol did not proliferate as quickly.  Check out an article in the Huffington Post that explains clearly the impact of estrogens and resveretrol on cancer cells.

 

On the con side of the argument there's another thorough article in The Atlantic Monthly (online) by Dr. Elaine Schattner.  She's not as bullish on the findings and argues that there are too many related factors that could influence the actual risk.  Her arguments make sense.

 

I am going to continue believing that a daily dose of red wine is somehow good for me and stick with staining my teeth with Pinots, Tempranillos and Grenache wines. 

 

The question is whether the discussion in these articles encourages Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc drinkers to occasionally have something more tannic and red in order to glean the resveretrol benefits of red wine.

 

Is it worth expanding your palate to red for the health benefits?  Yes?  No?

 

 

 

 

 

I have a tendency to go on varietal kicks. I’ll have a bottle of something and fall in love with it. And I’ll want to drink nothing but that variety for a while. I admit, I’m currently in a pinot kick. A few years ago I was in malbec kick.

In the US malbecs are cheap; you have a wide variety to choose from; and generally speaking they’re not bad. For a college student it’s an almost unbeatable choice. Since then, however, I’ve had a falling out with malbecs. I realized that for a few more dollars other varietals were giving me much better bang for my buck than malbecs of a similar price. In Singapore I found this doubly true.

And then, a few days ago, I went to a Dominio del Plata tasting. I rediscovered malbecs. I fell in love with malbecs all over again. I’m getting ahead of myself, however; let’s rewind.

Dominio del Plata by Susana Balbo nestles into the Mendoza region of Argentina. Jullien Bonnard, our guide, started his lesson with Argentina – the grapes, the history, the landscape and climate – everything a wino needs to know about Argentina. Excellent, most of us are more familiar with Australia, Europe, or America.

We started the night with the Crios de Susana Balbo Torrontés ’11. A lovely wine to start the night – not too heavy, dry and acidic. Floral on the nose with a hint of spice, maybe cloves. To me, it’s a quick wine, a ready drink on a hot day.

And then we moved onto the malbecs. Our first was the Crios de Susana Balbo Malbec ’10. This wine is beautiful to look upon – all the wines of the night were. It almost glows a deep, rich, velvety crimson. It’s light, quite refreshing, but it didn’t stir that old found love for malbecs.

Our next wine, the Susana Balbo Malbec ’09, stirred that long forgotten passion for malbecs. It smelled like butter, rich, creamy, inviting. It tasted clean, a touch sweeter than I expected, but mellow and refined.

And then, the Nosotros Malbec ’08. I came back to an old, long forgotten, lover. This wine is beautiful. Refined, elegant, definitely feminine; she starts with even more luscious butter on the nose and those spices from the Torrontés. She tastes delightful, mellow and clean and warm. She left me with smiling lips and a warm gut.

 

Thank you, Susana Balbo, for bringing me back to malbecs.

The old adage says, “Never judge a book by its cover” and nothing could be truer when it comes to wine.

 

The mistake novice wine drinkers make when first buying wine from their local supermarket is by looking at the front label on the bottle and making their purchase choice based on this. One can almost hear them think. “This looks nice!”

 

A pretty, colourful and eye-catching label has nothing to do with the product inside the bottle. Marketers are hired to make the bottle label stand out amongst the hundreds of other bottles on the shelf.

 

In my experience I have often found that the more colourful and eye-catching the label – the worse the wine itself actually is.

 

Images such as laughing kangaroos, cycling chimpanzees and half naked women really do not have anything to do with the wine and should be ignored when making a decision on buying your wine for dinner.

 

As a cynic, I would suggest that even the back label, written of course by the winery to make the wine sound good, may not even be a good indication of the wines quality and food pairing opportunities. Really, how many wines have you seen described as “good with chicken, fish and pasta dishes?”

 

So imagine my surprise when I found out there is actually an award for the “World’s Best Label’.

 

The most recent winner was Alpha Crucis Shiraz 2008 from Chalk Hill winery in McLaren Vale, an Australian wine that won the best label in Australia and then followed on to beat other ‘great labels’ from around the world.

 

For more on this report go to http://www.winechina.com/en/read.asp?id=2011122712 and make up your mind as to a) the label and b) if the wine itself may be any good. I reckon it’s pretty hard to tell from the label how good it is!!

 

But, I have not tried this wine so I can’t be too overly judgmental. The wine itself is available in Hong Kong from Leisure Wines (www.leisurewines.com) so I guess all I can do is go out and get myself a bottle to see if this wine really is as good as it looks!

 

Contributed by Alasdair Nicol, TLN Editor – Hong Kong

At 4:45 AM my girlfriend called to make sure I wouldn't miss my flight to Hong Kong.  I have a history of trouble with flights, especially in and out of Hong Kong.  I hastily threw on closes and packed two bottles of champagne into a backpack.  Sufficiently armed, I headed to Hong kong for New Year's Eve. 

I arrived, collected my champagne, and was on a train within a short hour. Within another I had met my friend, joining me on this intrepid adventure, and checked into my “hotel” room at Hong Kong Hostel in Causeway Bay. To my pleasant surprise, they had upgraded us from a dorm room into a twin room. Alas, I would have little opportunity to put it to use.

My Friend and I killed a few hourss taking advantage of Hong Kon's malls and restaurants and took the opportunity to open our first bottle of champagne, Henri Giraud's Esprit Rose.  What a fine champagne that is - surprisingly full-bidoed an dry - it set the tone for the rest of the night: classy and exciting.

 

Dinner consisted of pizza, pork ribs, nondescript fried noodles, and of course fried rice. The bubbles brought the class – the cheap brought the friends.  Having sufficiently prepared for the night the lot of us headed to our first stop, another friend’s apartment, overlooking the entire Hong Kong skyline!

Some twenty odd twenty somethings had gathered to bring in the New Year the only way we know how. Good friends, plenty of booze, and a good view. Everyone felt quite lively by the time the count down started. The group of us raised glasses and I popped our second bottle, Henri Giraud’s Esprit Blanc de Blanc – crisp, light, perfect. As a first drink for the New Year, I couldn’t ask for anything better. Everyone cheered, clinked, celebrated! Fire works and an incredible view played in the background to our jubilation.

With the night and the year young our crew ventured to the bars to celebrate with the rest of Hong Kong. And packed they were, nothing brings people out like a proper celebration. At this point the night and the group dissolves into a blurred hustle of dancing, new friends, drinks, and sporadic euphoria.

Come about 3:30AM it was time to head to the airport. I had a flight back to Singapore to catch. Beat up, exhausted, a little more than drunk, but ecstatic and alive I stumbled onto my flight back to Singapore.

 

I was asleep before the plane took off.

 

 

Like all wine lovers I thought the movie “Sideways” was one of the greatest movies of 2005 and regarding that movie, who can forget a disconsolate Miles sitting down at a fast food chain to drown his sorrows with a bottle of Cheval Blanc 1961 from a Styrofoam cup?

I have tried a few vintages of Cheval Blanc in recent years (1983, 1986, 1999, 2000, 2004, 2006, 2007) but I have been anywhere near a fast food restaurant and, in fact, whilst sipping the wine as graciously as it deserves, the thought of fast food was, in all honesty, about as far away from my mind as Ronald McDonald is from Joel Robuchon!

But, as I sit in the office looking out on a gloomy day, towards the end of a gloomy year with a gloomy economic outlook ahead in what may be another gloomy year, I got to thinking….can you really pair wine with fast food and if so, what would you drink with what?

Heading down to my local McDonalds ‘restaurant’ I picked five meals that I thought I could pair with five wines:

1) Chicken McNuggets with Sweet and Sour Sauce
2) Filet o Fish
3) McSpicy Chicken Filet
4) Big Mac
5) Quarter Pounder with Cheese

Now, the thought of trying to pair a ‘Sausage McMuffin with Egg’ with a wine made me nauseous, god only knows what’s really in the sausage patty and who in their right mind could pair a rubber egg with a wine, so I went for foods that seemed easy enough to pair with a wine.

After consulting a few friends on Facebook I got the impression that champagne was a great match to fast food so I decided to start with that. Skipping the fries I cracked into the Chicken nuggets and a glass of bubbly.

 

The wine somewhat complimented the nugget, and with the addition of the sweet and sour sauce it did actually clean the palate of the toxic taste of the sauce. Must say the nugget alone with Champagne isn’t all that bad!

Swiftly moving on I headed for the fridge and grabbed myself a nice Australian Chardonnay to go with my spicy chicken burger. In fact, it wasn’t all that bad, only that the chicken itself was rather oily and that spoilt the wines’ mouth feel. The spice was nicely counteracted by the mildly oaky Chardonnay and overall, I can’t say it was a bad match!

Fortunately for me, not a big eater, the consistency of McDonald’s food is not like others and it is possible to eat more of this ‘food’ than one would normally eat in other restaurants although I must profess to only having had 2 nuggets and a bite and a half of the spicy chicken filet thus far.

So, onward and upward we go with the Filet O Fish! I wanted to pair this with a New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc but thought that the tropical flavours and intense acidity would override the ‘delicate flavours of the fish of no discernable name or origin’ but in the end the only flavour that was on my palate was that of the super-overbearing tartar sauce that was so generously heaped upon the piece of fish.

According to Bob Campbell MW, if there is a food you don’t know what to pair a wine with, use Pinot Noir. This, I must say, may well be true as the Big Mac worked really well with the Pinot. Whether it was the ‘secret sauce’ – that is rather fruity – that complimented the wine, I don’t know, but in all it wasn’t bad at all!

Finally to the Quarter pounder which I paired with a Malbec from Argentina. First impressions were that there was no match at all but as I delved deeper into the burger and hit the ketchup and onions, the paring came together quite well. It must be said that the burger alone does not match the malbec but the sweetness of the ketchup and onion actually fared ok with the chocolatey flavours of the wine.

Overall, this is not an experience I wish to endeavor again. After the tasting I felt pretty rough and I am sure that had nothing to do with the wine. No one in their right mind would actually go out of their way to pair McDonald’s with wine and understandably so.

Whilst a good experiment it does make, after doing such, one begins to realise why they serve coca-cola and not wine!

Contributed by Alasdair Nicol, TLN Editor – Hong Kong

I’ll be the first to admit that my knowledge of Italian wines is limited. So I leaped at the chance to go to a master’s class on some Italian wines. And Taberna Wine Bar makes for an excellent setting. The tasting was co-taught by Sonia Canfora, Castellare di Castellina’s marketing director, and Ying Hsien Tan, the owner of Taberna.

We started the tasting with three reds from Rocca di Frassinello in Moremma, Italy. This estate represents the first joint venture between Italian and French wine makers, Castellare di Castellina and Baron de Rothschild. We tried the 2008 Poggio Alla Guardia first, Frassinello’s entry-level wine. Following came the 2006 Le Sughere di Frassinello, and finally the 2006 Rocca di Frassinello.

All three wines are blends of Sangioveto, Merlot, and Cabernet Sauvignon. The percentage of Sangioveto goes up with the quality of the wine, 65% in the Rocca Frassinello, 50% in the Sughere di Frassinello, and 15% in the Poggio Alla Guardia. Sangioveto, I learned, is the original clone upon which all other Sangiovese clones are based. My favorite was the Le Sughere di Frassinello – a little cleaner than the Poggio and a little more drinkable than the Rocca Frassinello – granted a few years will do them all good.

The next five wines, also from the Castellare di Castellina, are unique. Several major Italian fashion designers were asked to create a label and pick a wine varietal. Wines were created, all priced the same, for each of the fashion designers (Carolina Marengo, Missoni, Versace, and Valentino).

Carolina Marengo has two wines, a white, Il Grillo Carolina Morengo and a red, Frappato Carolina Morengo. As someone who normally favours red wine, I loved the 2007 Il Grillo Carolina Morengo. A touch sweet, nicely round – this wine is quite nice by itself but should pair well with a variety of foods, especially something tart.

 

The 2007 Cabernet Sauvignon Missoni surprised me with its lightness, especially considering it’s 100% cab. The 2007 Frappato Carolina Marengo, had a lovely nose, but petered out a little earlier than I wanted. The 2007 Nero D’Avola Versace, my favorite, came through strong on the nose and finished nicely – fine tannins with a lovely mouth feel. The 2007 Merlot Valentino was probably the smoothest wine, but lacked the presence of some of the others.

All in all, it was a fantastic and interesting tasting. If you’re looking for something unusual the Il Grillo Carolina Marengo fits the bill. The Grillo varietal can commonly be found in Italian blends, but very rarely by itself. And I enjoyed it immensely.

With only one “official” wine tasting session under my belt, I was terrified to attend the Riedel “master class” that would surely be full of wine savvy people. After my previous experience at the Hilton Wine Apprentice evening, I wasn’t looking forward to sharing my “lack of” opinions to a room full of disapproving eyes.

 

Once I arrived I was relieved to see over 100 seats around tables arranged in rows of 5.  My chances of being “picked on” were really miniscule!  *sigh of relief* 

 

The master himself, Georg Riedel began his presentation and was really sincere and humorous. I quietly sang inside for joy when he said, “Today, you will learn about the glass, not the wine. I want you to forget about the wine – don’t guess what the wine is that we are giving you – that is why I have asked for the wine to only be numbered. You do not need to know the name and vintage of the wine. What you need to know is how the glass you will drink from affects the taste.”

 

Mr. Riedel invited us to open our bottles of water and pour a little into each glass. “Okay everyone, there is no need to swirl the water around – I promise you, water has no smell.”  Everyone laughed as Mr. Riedel explained how the shape of the glasses changed the way the water filled our mouths and “activated” different parts of the mouth based on the flow.  Conceptually this seemed weird.  But with each try I most definitely felt something different when we drank from a different glass.  In the end I think I “got” what he was saying. 

 

After the water flight, we tasted three different wines in turn in three specialized glasses: the Syrah, Bordeaux Grand Cru, and Burgundy Grand Cru glasses.  Now the tough stuff began.  

 

Georg asked us to first evaluate each wine in a plastic cup, then pour a bit into each glass to taste. I struggled with identifying the aromas, but I could easily note how the glass shapes made the smell of the wine stronger or weaker. When it came to tasting, again, I couldn’t identify specific tastes (or describe the palate as everyone kept saying) but certainly the wine tasted different from the different glasses. What an interesting revelation!

 

Chocolate was the next thing on the agenda – we were to learn how to pair a wine with food. We were instructed to unwrap a piece of chocolate, chew it up a little and with the chocolate still in our mouths take a sip of the wine and “roll it around.”  It felt really strange. All my life, my mother has told me to swallow my food before drinking anything!   This was interesting but weird for me – it will take some practice for me to become a “food pairing” expert.

 

What I did learn from this exercise was that the same wine, drunk from a different glass, changed the taste of the chocolate. It was almost as if someone switched my glasses and gave me a completely different drink.

 

Finally, Georg touched on decanting by showing us some fancy decanters.  I thought it was cool that he didn’t spill a single drop, but since I didn’t get to taste the decanted wine, I have to believe that it was “aired” as he said.

 

To wrap up the lesson, Georg reminded us that selecting glassware is not about how expensive the glass is but rather is about which glass is better suited to the wine. That is really true.  I remembered that one of the wines tasted better from the plastic cup than from the Syrah glass!  Georg agreed on that too – so he was right. 

 

All this information about glassware is really good to know – but I have a lot more to learn about wines! I guess I still have a looong way to go!!

(Singapore) December is passing in a holiday blurr.  The year-end has featured so many wine dinners, wine tastings and wine sales that it’s difficult to remember them all. 

As similar as they all can be, I have an experiential “hangover” from a one wine event that went virtually unnoticed in the social calendar about three weeks ago.  It wasn’t unnoticed because wine lovers chose not to go – it was because most didn’t even know it was even on!

Billed as the Wine and Restaurant Experience 2011 the WRX Wine Journey (Nov 26, Saturday) promised a great culinary and wine event.  What limited publicity there was listed 118 wine labels, 58 wineries, 18 wine merchants, seven wine master classes, eight chefs and eleven wine personalities making up this wine journey. Why would anyone interested in wine want to miss this?  I certainly didn’t!

I arrived at 10:45am, registered for several master classes and took a quick stroll around the “exhibits”.  Eight leading Singapore restaurants were busy preparing their signature dishes for the “Gourmet Pairing  Market”.   A VIP lounge was opening and those who had paid top price would have be able to access some very special wines.  I had purchased an $88 ticket allowing me to attend my choice of master classes , taste everything at the 7 “wine activity centers” and enjoy the all 8 specially prepared dishes and pairings.  

What I didn’t know was that the restaurants had sent their best chefs and spent time making top wine pairing choices.  Apart from the hustle and bustle of those involved the place seemed relatively quiet but it was still early.  At that stage I had no idea just how quiet the day would be.

Right at 11:00am I presented myself for the Italian Master class given by Massimo Billetto a leading figure in the Italian oenogastronomy (yes it is a word!) scene;  I was alone. The room was still being prepared.  Finally at 11:45 the class started and the group had grown to a round dozen which coincidentally was the number of very good wines we were about to taste.  

We finished at 1:15pm and realising that I had unfortunately missed the start of the class on New Zealand reds I and my stomach decided it would be better to start sampling the food. The chefs did a great job; the food was excellent, the accompanying wines perfect - there was lots to go around and the exhibitors had lots of time to talk.  Service was efficient and there were no queues since there were hardly any visitors!

I wanted very much to learn about Austrian reds and the master class was due at 15:00h. At 16:00h the preparations were still not finished and the decision was taken to cancel the class since I would have been the only participant.   

To sum it up, this WRX Wine Journey was a very well-conceived wine/food event concept offering access to leading wine personalities some of whom made the trip to Singapore especially for the day: Add to it the outstanding food from well-known restaurants with the chefs cooking on the spot,  seven wine activity centers with experts providing insight into grape varieties and wines and a VIP lounge giving us the possibility to taste spectacular wines. So where was everyone? I thoroughly enjoyed what I ate and drank; I loved not having to queue and being able to take my time and though I was annoyed about the poor masterclass organisation  at the same time I felt for the exhibitors who put on a brave face and made a major effort to please the “small” public.  They were obviously expecting the response to be on a very different scale.

Potentially a great event but one that will be remembered for the wrong reasons because the organizers underestimated the efforts needed to inform the public.