Glugging down the globe
The crowds turn out for the Hong Kong International Wine & Spirits Fair but Thai labels fail to shine in competition
More than 950 exhibitors from 36 countries attended the 2012 Hong Kong International Wine & Spirits Fair earlier this month, making the fifth edition of this event the biggest to date. Wine producers from Azerbaijan and Russia joined the big boys from France and Italy at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre for the very first time and the public streamed into the hall on the final day, seemingly happy to pay the admission fee of HK$200 (Bt800) a head.
More than 50 events, from wine tastings and master classes to expert seminars were held over the three days and all were well attended. A wide variety of wine, spirits and other alcoholic beverages, along with wine accessories and equipment and related services like wine logistics and training, were showcased.
Highlights included the 4th Cathay Pacific Hong Kong International Wine and Spirit Competition Award Presentation Ceremony and “A Mid-Autumn Night’s Dream of Truffles” gala wine dinner, which saw three Michelin-starred chefs preparing dishes for the glamorous night.
A wine education zone aimed to cultivate wine appreciation as well as provide training for industry professionals. Other palate education offerings ranged from daily wine-tasting sessions to master classes and seminars.
Wine tasting sessions spotlighting labels from Australia, France, Italy and Spain were held on the last day of the fair to allow visitors to participate at an admission price of HK$500, which included entry to the fair itself.
Handbag heir heir Xavier-Louis Vuitton made an appearance at the fair along with his son Quentin-Louis, to introduce his XLV Champagne and wines specifically tailored to the Chinese palate, while the Japanese underscored the popularity of their famous tipple by holding sake-tasting classes for the first time.
Visooth Lohitnavy, CEO and managing director of Thailand’s GranMonte vineyard, producer of many award-winning wines, was satisfied by the fair, commenting that it was very well organised and growing larger year by year. “It’s good to have this one in addition to Vinexpo, which is more biased towards French wines. But I’m not sure if the exhibitors are getting as much in return as they would wish, mainly buyers from mainland China,” he observed.
Visooth said that while he was pleased to see better support for Asian wines in the Cathay Pacific Wine & Spirits competition, thanks to the introduction of new Asian food categories, he was disappointed that Thai wines had failed to shine in the competitions.
“GranMonte has sent wines to compete every year and we’ve received bronze medals at the most. This year, we are going home with seven bronzes: three from wine only competition and four from the wine and food matching competition. Likewise, Siam Winery has picked up three bronzes and PB Khao Yai 1 bronze,” Visooth noted.
“Yet Thai wines have won numerous awards around the world over the past four years and from much larger and well-known and older competitions with more wine entries like AWC in Vienna, Syrah du Monde, Decanter, IWSC, IWC in UK and the Sydney International Wine Competition. From the AWC Vienna, Granmonte brought home one gold medal, three silvers and four seals of approval for the same wines as we are showcasing here.”
Could it be down to the tastes of the judges? Japanese wines from Chateau Mercian, which also won many awards both last year and this again year, picked up just four prizes, three of them in the wine and food matching competition.
Visooth doesn’t believe in luck but surmised the results could be related to different methods of judging and the methods of weighting the points.
“And the training, experience and preference of individual judges also comes into play. I saw the names and photos of the people who did the judging this year and have a feeling that some may not have enough experience or perhaps have a greater preference for the French wine style. This begs the question of whether the same judges or at least judges from the same geographical area, ie Hong Kong and China, would give similar results every year.”
Check it out
The winners of the 4th Cathay Pacific Hong Kong International Wine and Spirits Competition are listed at www.HKiwsc.com.
