Hong Kong

The Mandarin Oriental’s limousine is ready and awaiting my arrival in Hong Kong and I am immediately impressed with the efficient service that is the norm in this fast-paced city.

This landmark hotel is now managed by one of my very first Asian clients, Jonas Schurmann, who when I met him twenty years ago was the Food & Beverage Director at the legendary Oriental Bangkok.

Within two hours of my plane landing, I’ve checked into to my room, have showered fresh, and I am sitting at my desk in The Antique Wine Company’s Hong Kong offices enjoying the sunset view over Hong Kong’s exclusive residential district ‘The Peak.’

After taking care of a few administrative matters, my local director (Julien Froger) and I set off for dinner with ‘Mr. Pavie,’ one of Hong Kong’s numerous wine collectors. We dine at Cepage, a Michelin-starred restaurant owned by an Antique Wine Company client from Singapore, and take pleasure in a dinner that would knock the socks off many meals at notable European restaurants.

During the evening we compare the various virtues of La Mission Haut Brion versus Chateau Haut Brion from the now deliciously drinkable 1999 vintage. The La Mission is deep and powerful, with an austerity that will serve the wine well for a long life yet to come. The Haut Brion is more about elegance, finesse, and the classic minerality that for me is the hallmark of this great wine.

Afterwards it is back to the hotel for a mandatory nightcap and some time to play catch-up on the ever-growing email inbox because the European business day is still in full swing. I am finally ready for bed around 2:00AM, which I take as a good indication that my jet lag has reduced itself from seven to a mere three hours of discomfort.

The following two days are spent in client office meetings and hashing out deals over lunches and dinners. It is a very full agenda, but I also manage to sit for an interview with the Wall Street Journal about the phenomenon of the Hong Kong wine market. The interview includes making a visit to a private wine cellar at a spectacular home on Hong Kong's famous St. Andrews Golf Course, which is located about an hour drive away in the New Territories. Here we see another side of Hong Kong which reminds me of Gibraltar twenty years ago.

My final day in Hong Kong includes a visit to our logistics company. They provide us with a very secure and temperature-controlled storage facility in the Sha Tin District. The visit is followed by lunch with another one of our importers/exporters to mainland China. Over the best Dim Sum lunch I have ever tasted we talk about the Chinese market and how consumers are now developing interest in wines other than just Chateau Lafite.

While Lafite looks certain to remain the iconic wine for gift-giving, it seems there is a rapidly growing demand for many other Grand Crus and their second wines.

We spend some time studying the 1855 Classification in detail and interpreting the Chinese translation of each name. Leoville Las Cases, for example, means “Wine of the Lion.” Angelus is translated as “Golden Bell.” In China it is not only the taste of the wine but also its name, its meaning and its price that are important factors in the market.

I manage to get an hour in at the Mandarin Oriental's spa before my final dinner, a meal with one of Hong Kong's most prolific collectors, ‘JC.’ We meet at one of his buildings in the former manufacturing, but now choice residential, area of Kowloon.

It is a modest 50-storey affair, about the same size as London's Park Lane Hilton, and inside JC has installed two wine cellars.

One cellar houses about 10,000 bottles of his personal wine collection, and the other is divided into 100 smaller lockers which are rented out to fellow wine collectors for their own storage. "It’s just a hobby business," he tells me casually as we sip on Pol Roger's 1998 Cuvee Winston Churchill and tour his personal cellar - which seems to contain every great wine ever produced. We examine cases of DRC, Comte de Vogue, and Comtes Lafon going back to the 1950's, along with Petrus, Cheval Blanc and all the other First Growths.

Later, over a Japanese dinner in his boardroom, we share Louis Latour's 1989 Corton Charlemagne, Bouchard Pere et Fils Batard Montrachet 2000, Armand Rousseau's Gevrey Chambertin Clos St Jacques 2000, and Chateau Palmer 1983. It is a delightful finale to my three day visit to Hong Kong, and I am dropped back at my hotel with enough time to pack for my 5:00AM departure.

However, as I step into the hotel elevator, out walks ‘Charlie’ - one of our longest-standing clients from Bangkok. What a coincidence in this small world!  Charlie, who is now running JP Morgan's Hong Kong office, and I enjoy a nightcap at the bar together, a drink well worth it because I pick up an order for a few more cases of 1982 First Growths, including a case of Chateau Latour in superb condition that we acquired recently in a cellar purchase in Switzerland.

Thank goodness I am able to get some sleep on my Singapore Airlines flight back to Europe the following day. That is of course after the Krug, caviar, and roast lamb washed down with plenty of their standard Bordeaux - Chateau Cos d'Estournel 2004!
 
For The Antique Wine Company, Asia is currently the fastest growing sector of our customer base, but we still don’t know enough about our clients there. They remain a complex mix of wine traders, hoteliers, and private collectors. During the coming year my objective is to get to know them and their needs better.

Travel arrangements booked by Amex Platinum Travel Service.

Joel Robuchon seems to be continually making the headlines these days, his latest achievement being a further Michelin star for his Japanese restaurant YOSHI at the Hotel Metropole in Monaco.  The Antique Wine Company has many  clients in the Principality and so this news prompted me during a recent visit to have lunch at the hotel’s main restaurant, it is one of my favourites but also because it has just appointed a new head sommelier, Frederic Woelffle, fresh from the Four Seasons Resort in Provence at Terre Blanche (pictured left).

This gastronomic experience didn’t disappoint from Robuchon protégé Christophe Cussac.  An amuse bouche of foie gras with port wine and parmesan cheese whet the appetite along with the most extensive array of breads that I believe I have ever seen. I wondered if I might be asked by the enthusiastic sommelier:  “what wine would like with your bread sir?”

The wine list boasts many great wines: 1990 Domaine de la Romanee Conti St Vivant at €3,600 per bottle; 1998 Cheval Blanc for €4,200 and a 1985 Chateau Petrus at an eyewatering €6,650.  While the 2004 Petit Mouton de Mouton Rothschild seemed to be priced high at €360, the Chateau d’Yquem 1998 seemed quite reasonable by comparison at €970.  Often when it’s hard to find value on a restaurant wine list the Rhone valley provides respite and this was definitely one of those situations. I settled on a bottle of 2003 St Joseph from Domaine Jean-Louis Chave. Having chosen this based upon its relatively great value at €80, I was well pleased with the wine’s lovely mineral and liquorice flavours leading into a long peppery finish but selecting the food to match the wine was the challenge.

After Saint Jacques, spit roasted “Poulet Fermier” with Robuchon’s famous mashed potato, rumour has it that it’s made with 50 per cent cream plus 50 per cent butter and a little potato thrown in, sommelier Nicolas Vialettes, whom I remembered from restaurant The Square in London, came over and complimented my choice on the wine, “one of the best wine makers in the world”.  Reflecting on this for a moment, I remembered the little known fact that more 100 point Parker wines have appeared from the Rhone Valley than Bordeaux!

Head sommelier Frederic Woelffle then appeared and kindly offered my companion and I a glass of 2001 Chateau La Mission Haut-Brion, “an open bottle that just happened to be in the kitchen!”.  We chatted about the wine list Frederic has proudly inherited, but says he has yet to cast his signature upon it.

He invited me to return in a couple of months to do one of my Riviera Radio wine series interviews, an occasion which I’m certainly looking forward to because I suspect the wine list here is set to become something quite special.

Following the medley of desserts including apple tart and dark chocolate torte, I finally “Iles flottanted” my way home with the sweet aftertaste of a very pleasant food and wine experience! 

It is mid-March, and seems to be getting warmer day by day here in southern France, this morning was so beautiful that I decided to make a visit to a couple of our hotel/restaurant clients on the island of Corsica to see if we could help with a pre-season stock up of their cellars.

Our twin Cessna almost knows its own way from its home base at Cannes airport across to Calvi, a small town on the north west tip of the island. The Croisette and the coastal mountains fell quickly behind us and within 45 minutes we were navigating around the snow capped peaks to land at the small airport tucked into the bay among rocky foothills.

There is a rustic feel to this place and lots of history, most famously being the island from where Napoleon Bonaparte originated, it was also at Calvi where the British Admiral Horatio Nelson lost one of his eyes in battle with the French.

Antique Wine Company’s consultant sommelier Eleanor Shannon had joined me for the trip and we passed through the deserted terminal to find Hotel La Villa’s driver who zipped us up this hillside to enjoy lunch at their Michelin starred restaurant with its spectacular views beyond the medieval fort of the “old town”; the deep blue bay; and the snow covered mountains rising up in the distance. There was an early spring breeze coming off the sea, but it felt just warm enough to sit outside, all was quiet and serene.

Eleanor and I were hardly surprised to find ourselves as the sole visitors, quite a contrast to what it will be like just two months from now.

There are moments in life for Grand Crus, Montrachet and Meursault but equally pleasing, when one is in a region where the terroir and passion of the locals is as condusive to quality as Corsica, are the local wines.

We agreed that it was a day for fresh fish and white wine and who better to choose the wine than the hotel sommelier, Mickael Sizero to suggest which white he would recommend from Patrimonio, the region we could see on the other side of the bay. The steward offered to bring us a special bottle he had in reserve, not listed on the menu, a 2008 Antoine Arena Grotte di Sole. Antoine produces red wine from the local Nieluccio grape and white from Vermentino on 17 hectares, three of which are called Grotte di Sole, apparently there was once a sundial there. (More...)

All A.O.C. white wines in Corsica are made 100% with Vermentino, a grape variety grown also in three regions in Italy: Liguria, Piedmont and Sardinia. The grape, which probably originally came from Spain, produces a light, crisp, uncomplicated wine, with some floral and citrus notes.

The wine paired well with an antipasto of “fish tartar”, a delightful risotto Saint Jacques, garnished with arugula and shavings of parmesan cheese, and finally, broiled Chapon (Grouper) with small, buttered potatoes.

To conclude, M. Sizero offered us a delightful “vin doux” again, 100% vermentino, but produced with grapes infected by “noble rot” or botrytis cinerea. The wine named “Beau Tri Tis” of unmarked vintage, no doubt a secret combination of years, showed its deep golden colour and fresh acidity which to me resembled Alsace more than Sauternes, suggesting perhaps five years old rather than ten. The mystery remains open for further exploration, one thing for sure about wine is that…there’s always more to learn!