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Grape Expectations
GRAPE EXPECTATIONS
VICTOR PAUL BORG EXPLORES THE GROWING THIRST FOR THAI WINES
“IN THE BEGINNING, it was like a joke – people were laughing when I told them I was making wines in Thailand,” recounts the Frenchman Laurent Metge-Toppin, oenologist of Siam Winery. “My friends thought I had gone mad.”
A decade on, Laurent is having the last laugh – the wines he developed have earned encouraging international recognition in the past few years, and local sales had jumped by more than five per cent last year alone.
One of the largest of seven professional Thai wineries that have sprouted up in the past decade, Siam Winery is best known for its Monsoon Valley wines. Cultivated at the Chao Phraya River delta at the aptly named Floating Vineyards, the plants are grown on strips of islands surrounded by water canals and trained on trellises that span the canals; workers sometimes move around in small boats.
It is an evocative sight, and although the fields are designed in that manner for the mundane reason of draining the water from what would otherwise be a swamp, it’s a winner in marketing. The sight conjures the endearing impression that wine made in Thailand is different and exotic – and rather good.
ON THE UP
“The perception that the quality of Thai wine is good is being established,” says Kim Wachtveitl, vice-president of the Thai Wine Association. “More than 90 per cent of five-star hotels in Thailand stock Thai wine, and we are now starting to move into other hotels.”
Set up to raise the profile of the industry by collective marketing and enforcement of high-quality production systems among its members, the Thai Wine Association was formed in 2004, a decade after the first professional wine was made in Thailand.
Back then, in the early ’90s, Dr Chaijudh Karnasuta, a Thai wine aficionado, established Chateau De Loei Winery in the northeastern mountains.
Another six professional wineries have since followed suit, and the industry now counts one million bottles annually and 1,200 employees. Grapes are grown in three regions – in the far north, the northeastern hills near Khao Yai, and the Chao Phraya River delta – and the wineries all grow the same half-dozen grapes, including the Pokdum, the indigenous grape.
PERFECT PARTNERS
Pokdum is enticing because it is unique – but whether it is Pokdum or other varieties transposed from other parts, all the wines made in Thailand are distinctive due to the local ecological conditions. Generally speaking, the wines are fruity, slightly sweet, light in body and low in tannins.
“We encourage those characteristics,” Laurent explains, “partly because it makes for distinct wines – and not simply another French wine made outside France – and partly because those qualities make the wine ideal for spicy food.”
All wineries have adopted this narrative of making wines compatible with spicy foods. Unlike Western-type traditional wines, which taste bitter and acidic with pungent dishes, Thai wines are given a lift in flavour and texture by such cuisine. For example, Siam Winery’s Shiraz is less peppery than Shiraz produced elsewhere, and the chilli in Thai cooking gives the wine an extraneous peppery vitality.
The same applies for all the others, and some slot neatly in a particular spectrum of Thai food taste. An example is the Chenin Blanc by Chateau De Loei that is particularly suited for sweet, fruity and pungent desserts.
“Thai wine for Thai food” has now become an oft-repeated marketing motto. Kim elaborates, “It’s a good approach for branding. It’s a new product that consumers need to associate with Thailand and its plethora of spicy food – and that is why the bulk of the current sales are in Thai restaurants outside Thailand.”
TOAST OF THE TOWN
Thai wine is certainly more popular in Thai restaurants. At The Oriental Bangkok, for example, more Thai wine is consumed at Sala Rim Naam, the hotel’s Thai restaurant, than at Le Normandie, the plush French restaurant.
“I do recommend Thai wine to my customers,” says Tiwa Yenwattna, sommelier of Le Normandie. “In particular, Chateau De Loei produces two versions of the same wine – extra-dry and regular-dry. The extra-dry versions go very well with French food, while the regular ones work best with spicy dishes.
“The Shiraz, on the other hand, has a relatively light body, so it’s best with dense meats such as venison, lamb and game dishes,” Tiwa adds. “One certainly has to be adventurous to match Thai wine with game meats, but my customers are pleasantly surprised to find that the wines are better than they had imagined.”
At the Blue Elephant, an upscale Bangkok restaurant, Thai wines are aggressively pushed, and about 30 bottles are consumed weekly. Something of an institution renowned for its creative Royal-style Thai cooking, Blue Elephant has grown into an international brand with half a dozen restaurants scattered around the world.
“We are the leaders in the co-evolution of Thai food and wine,” says Tham Prawattree, personal assistant to the vice-president. “Our chefs are constantly adjusting dishes to match local wines. At present, we’re also developing our own exclusive Thai wine under the Blue Elephant brand.”
Tham says that more Thai wines are consumed in their London operation, however, because diners are more curious about the concept of “Thai wine with Thai food”.
Most winemakers agree, and Kim points out that if the 10,000 Thai restaurants around the world take one case (12 bottles) every week, it would amount to 6 million bottles yearly – a six-fold increase in the current production levels.
Luring Thai drinkers at home is much harder, though.
The cultural predilection against wine is exacerbated by the extraordinary 200 per cent tax foisted on wine, higher than the tax for whisky and beer, the mainstays of Thai consumers.
This makes Thai wine in supermarkets relatively expensive, and it riles Kim. “If we could have a tax incentive and sell bottles for 200 baht in supermarkets, our wines would fly off the shelf.”
TASTE CHALLENGE
On the technical side, meanwhile, there is still a way to go before the taste refinements and the year-on-year quality reaches equilibrium. Oenologists are still grappling with the problem thrown up by two harvests annually – a condition arising from highly-productive tropical ecology – as the juice in the grapes is diluted by two annual yields.
To boost the plants’ vitality and yields, Siam Winery has been inducing dormancy after the first winter harvest; the leaves are manually torn off the plants and a chemical applied to the buds to enforce dormancy for at least a few weeks.
“We’re still trying to figure out what to do with the second inferior harvest,” Laurent says. “One option is to do a fruit juice; another is to make a different wine from each harvest. With the Malaga Blanc, we have been mixing juice from the two harvests into one production. So far, it seems to work well.”
Yet, the most intense experimentation is devoted to the Pokdum grape, the indigenous variety. Wines from Pokdum have an earthy taste that could be dull and flat, and winemakers have been countering these characteristics by blending Pokdum with other grapes. Siam Winery’s Pokdum wine, for example, is 85 per cent Pokdum, 10 per cent Shiraz, and five per cent Black Muscat.
“One of the reasons for this mix is market-inspired,” Laurent explains. “The presence of Shiraz adds recognition while the Pokdum adds uniqueness.”
The search for other grapes that could be cultivated in Thailand with good results hasn’t come to an end yet either. At the Royal Agricultural Research Station in Hua Hin, 20 new grape varieties are currently being tested, so the Pokdum might find other bedfellows in years to come.
A way to go indeed, but the momentum is unstoppable now, and when Laurent speaks about Thai wine in Europe, no one is sniggering and chuckling anymore.
VINEYARD VISITS
Many winemakers have been busy introducing vineyard tours, wine-tasting, and building restaurants and resorts at the vineyards – something that has dramatically boosted business as the wineries that receive guests now sell about 40 per cent of their production on-site.
“We started our restaurant because visitors would drop in and ask us if we had something to eat,” says Visooth Lohitnavy, owner of GranMonte Estate. “Now it’s one of the best restaurants in Khao Yai, and we attract about 12,000 diners every year. Vineyard tours are even more popular, drawing some 50,000 people every year, mostly Thais.”
GranMonte Estate (www.granmonte.com), as well as a cluster of other wineries, is situated in the mountains near Khao Yai, a scenic area home to Thailand’s oldest National Park.
Another winemaker is PB Valley (www.khaoyaiwinery.com), which also has a resort and restaurant. “Now we are enlarging the resort,” says Heribert Gaksch, media spokesperson for PB Valley. “There’s certainly a market for a bigger resort.”
An alternative way to visit Khao Yai’s vineyards is on a wine trail by bicycle, with the lush rolling hills and temperate climate making the region ideal for cycling. Bangkok Bike Rides (tel +66 (0)2 712-5305, www.bangkokbikerides.com) offers a two-day escape, which includes vehicle support, bike hire, helmet, meals, accommodation and pick up/drop off in Bangkok.
Siam Winery (www.monsoonvalleywines.com) can facilitate tours of the Floating Vineyards by prior arrangement. Yet, the best and latest outfit, which opened in late 2006, is Doi Hom Fha (www.doihomfharesort.com), a boutique resort attached to the Mae Chan Winery. Its 25-deluxe suites and villas are set amidst the misty jungle-clad mountains, north of Chiang Rai.
“We expect the numbers of guests to range from 200 to 500 every month during our first year of operation,” says executive manager Nantarat Tangvitoontham.
BANGKOK BOTTLES
Most of the restaurants in five-star hotels and upscale stand-alone restaurants in Bangkok stock Thai wine. These include Sala Rim Naam and Le Normandie (The Oriental Bangkok, 48 Oriental Avenue, tel +66 (0)2 659-9000, www.mandarinoriental.com), Blue Elephant (233 South Sathorn Road, tel +66 (0)2 673-9353, www.blueelephant.com), Supatra River House (266 Soi Wat Rakhang, Arunamarin Road, Siriraj, tel +66 (0)2 411-0305); and Thai on 4 (Amari Watergate, 847 Petchburi Road, tel +66 (0)2 2653-9000, www.amari.com/watergate).
Wine is also available in most supermarkets, especially the branches of Tesco and Big C, as well as upscale shops and shopping malls in Siam and Sukhumvit such as Siam Paragon, Emporium, and Villa Market.
Two wineries also have their own shops in Bangkok, and virtually all of them offer home deliveries – details are on the websites of the wineries, which are linked to the website of the Thai Wine Association (www.thaiwine.org).
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