Wrapping Up VinExpo

Highlights, challenges and triumphs

VinExpo Hong Kong ended a couple of weeks ago, but it was such a fast-paced gathering with so many lingering reverberations that I’m still feeling its effects. Certainly, no description of the event is complete without detailing the highly anticipated visit of Monica Soldera of the legendary Case Basse di Soldera in Montalcino. When I first arrived in HK, I noticed that Soldera was relatively unknown among Hong Kong’s wine collectors. (The wines of Quintarelli, Gravner and Giacomo Conterno fall into this category as well.)

With no existing following in HK, my challenge became how to properly introduce an $1800 HKD wine like the 2002 Brunello Riserva. Furthermore, the Soldera Brunellos don’t look like other Brunellos. I was happy to discover the power of tastings, and HK has embraced the wines of Soldera. Monica’s first visit to Asia was a perfect opportunity for producer and wine-lovers to get to know one other properly, and over the past year, we’d built up enough intrigue and positive experiences that Monica’s visit to Hong Kong in May brought four consecutive sold-out events during VinExpo week.

The most notable aspect of Monica’s visit was her grace and her refreshing approach to introducing the wines of Case Basse. While she is an encyclopedia of wine facts, Monica was casual and disarming—a perfect demeanor for VinExpo, because the week had overwhelmed everyone with a deluge of wine facts and bold statements. The Soldera dinners centered on spending time with each wine individually so that we could see how nature guided the family’s winemaking and gave each wine its own personality. Monica was able to make each wine seem like a guest of honor, allowing us to refrain from feeling a need to make any immediate judgments about anything. She took the competitive nature out of the tasting experience and created a light atmosphere to simply enjoy each other’s company and to get to know one other better.

Monica’s Hong Kong visit was so exciting that each event deserves its own description, which I’ve provided below.

Tuesday 25 May – Otto e Mezzo

This event was a no-brainer, because it matched Monica with HK’s celebrated Italian Chef Bombana, esteemed GM Danilo Nicoletti, a gorgeous private room for twenty, and a wonderful group. The food and wine were out of this world. I hardly had to work. I simply gave Danilo and Bombana the wine list, and they agonized over the proper menu, updating it just days before the dinner in order to perfect it. Tajima Beef Tongue on Brunello and Mushroom Risotto paired with a 2003 Brunello Riserva Soldera thrilled us, but we still had the 2002 and 1983 Brunellos ahead of us. It was as if none of us could fathom better food or wine, yet we kept going. Before the night had ended, the restaurant asked Monica to sign two remaining magnums of 1983 Brunello for their own collection; they’re now proudly part of a very impressive large format collection. Overall, this evening was a perfect start to our week, and Monica knew where she could get incredible Italian food if she got homesick.

Wednesday 26 May – Crown Cellars

We held a small gathering in the Crown Library that was co-hosted by Hong Kong’s ultimate host, Greg De’eb. It was a far cry from last year’s event with Movia’s Ales Kristancic, “Marvelous Night for a Moon-dance,” which featured bottles opened under a full moon, ballroom dancing and swordplay. However different the events, our guests received the same experience in the end: an understanding of the wine through the personality of the producer. Each wine was tasted together, side-by-side, throughout the meal. This format allowed us to feel all the wines evolve simultaneously over the course of hours. By this point in VinExpo, most attendees had been to two wine dinners already in the week, and the casual atmosphere—a Monica Soldera staple—and Soldera’s wines of finesse put some life back into our group as we all prepared for the rest of the week’s events.

Thursday 27 May – The China Club

When we host our producers in HK, we like to throw at least one event where we pair Italian wines with Asian cuisine. I always rave about the quality of service at The China Club, and in my last post I’d noted that they’d hosted a staggering number of wine dinners during VinExpo. Sadly, and I mean sadly, I couldn’t attend this dinner, but the feedback from attendees was consistently great. Soldera’s wines paired surprisingly very well with a number of local dishes and showed great versatility. A number of guests reported that their bodies were wearing down from intense eating and drinking during the week, some reported that they should have taken a night off from the events, but those who were there said they couldn’t miss the Soldera night at The China Club. Monica was very pleased to have the opportunity to host a dinner with Chinese cuisine, and she was delighted to pass the Chinese cuisine test, a prerequisite for success in the new Hong Kong market.

Friday 28 May – Don Alfonso

My colleague Christina escorted Monica by helicopter to Macau to start the day. However, I, being more afraid of heights than any man should be, was happy to take the boat and sleep on the way to our last day of meetings and events. Our evening at the stunning Don Alfonso in Grand Lisboa began with a very pleasant surprise—Chef Alfonso himself would be attending the dinner as a guest. As with the staff of Otto e Mezzo, Chef Alfonso and his restaurant team hold Soldera wines with high regard and worked hard to create a truly special experience for all of us who were lucky enough to attend. Don Alfonso’s perfect pairing of 1983 Brunello from magnum with Wagyu beef tenderloin and puffed spaghetti (it’s beyond description) was almost a shame to consume. But we did anyway, and it was amazing.

To paraphrase Monica’s father, Gianfranco, a great wine is one that you miss immediately after you’ve finished it. I missed the Soldera dinners the moment we left Don Alfonso. After an exhausting week and non-stop events, I take that to be a testament to Soldera.

VinExpo was a crazy blast of too much food, so much wine and an avalanche of new friends. Two weeks later, I’m only just beginning to recover. Naturally, I look forward to doing it all again next year.

Hong Kong VinExpo

Eating, drinking, connecting and loving every minute of it

Hong Kong is a quintessential networking town, and VinExpo is a perfect match for this predilection of our fair island. Since making the move to Hong Kong, I’ve felt that working here is enjoyable, because professionals from all industries seem to be especially keen to work together in order to help everyone succeed. Thus, I was delighted to notice upon entering VinExpo that excitement about Italian wines has really grown in this region. IWM Hong Kong’s primary focus remains on Italy’s best wines, and we love how our friends in the trade help us enhance the Italian wine scene in Hong Kong. Judging by what I saw at VinExpo, Italian wine might have seemed like a quiet storm just a year ago, but that storm may soon grow into a typhoon.

Given the number of other amazing offerings at VinExpo, we were delighted to sell out all of our Soldera wine dinners (more on these soon). This feat was a sincere compliment from our clients, because we were well aware of how many tempting options were available each night. Events ranging from private dinners at the Great Wall of China to extravagant Grand Cru tastings set the tone for a lavish and competitive week in the city. By the time our Thursday dinner event arrived, attendees started to look a little bit fatigued. Complaints about the week’s lavish wining and dining might fall on deaf ears, but VinExpo’s three-day sensory overload led by the world’s greatest Type-A personalities is enough to wear out the best of us. Many of our media friends had worked so hard to report on VinExpo from unique angles that it understandably may have been difficult to enjoy even the most casual of events, let alone nightly launch parties. Seriously, the journalists seemed to need Matrix-like speed and endurance to be as many places as they needed to be.

They weren’t alone.

During the week of VinExpo, the legendary China Club hosted private wine functions in nearly every one of its stylish havens each evening—based on my periodic visits to the club throughout the week, I estimate between six to 10 wine dinners per night. When we met at The China Club’s Long March Bar on Thursday night, Sommelier Henry Chang (Hong Kong’s 2007 Best Sommelier Winner) looked like a man who had coordinated scores of intricate wine dinners. From seeing what they do when we host our wine dinners, I know that The China Club’s team provides outstanding service, and I admit that ours can be more demanding in service needs. Henry was the consummate, if incredibly busy, professional.

In meeting contacts ranging from global importers, to airline food and beverage execs, to esteemed producers and négociants, I found that the most common questions were these: What do we do about China? And what do we expect for 2009 Bordeaux En Primeur? I don’t believe anyone in the room truly had the answers, though speculation was rampant and imaginative. I’m sure there were a few exhibitors who’ll find the right answer and will reap major rewards. So for now I hope we table those questions and get back to what we do so well in Hong Kong—getting to know each other’s interests and forging collaborative relationships.

And, of course, eating and drinking very well while we do it.

Refosco Fan Club

Secret handshake optional

Last night at our Fantinel wine dinner at Tuscany by H, we saw the birth of the Refosco Fan Club of Hong Kong. On a night when more familiar wines such as Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon and Prosecco showed very well, it was the less familiar wines—Refosco and Ramandolo—that boldly announced themselves as wines to be taken very seriously.

Both of these wines came from Marco Fantinel’s boutique Friuli estate, La Roncaia, and both sparked discussion of the endless possibilities for local Friulano wines like these in Hong Kong, as well as their challenges. Watching this crowd grow excited over these more obscure wines was reminiscent for me of the first time I saw the superhuman Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt destroy world records at the Beijing Olympics. No one expected what they got, and what they got was awesome.

Make no mistake: Fantinel is shooting for the very top with his appassimento-style Refosco, one of three produced by his family’s estates. The only wine comparable to this Refosco that comes to mind is Giuseppe Quintarelli’s Primofiore, though this comparison could evolve into something like Quintarelli’s Valpolicella. La Roncaia was created in partnership with Tibor Gal, who was instrumental in the creation of Ornellaia and Masseto before heading to Friuli for this venture.

Our group simply could not stop talking about this Refosco—and then our dessert wine arrived. It was La Roncaia’s 2007 Ramandolo. None of our guests had ever heard of Ramandolo before, but it didn’t matter after the first sip of this late-harvested Verduzzo beauty. One of our very experienced guests declared it to be one of the best dessert wines he’d ever tasted!

And just like that, the Ramandolo Fan Club was also born. No handshake has been created yet—at least not one that I can tell you about.

Awaiting VinExpo

A whirlwind of wine and learning

It is the calm before the storm in Hong Kong: VinExpo begins this week. Wheelers and dealers from all over the wine world converge in HK to, well, wheel and deal. At trade shows like VinExpo, I spend my time listening to how exhibitors talk about their wines and services, more than I spend my time tasting the wines themselves. Whether it’s custom wine investment services or space-age decanting gizmos, I like to see how the pitch in Asia differs from what I’ve heard in the USA. I’ll be paying close attention to promotional materials, their look and feel, and I’ll keep an ear out for the effective buzz words. Basically, I’m looking for what exhibitors believe motivates their target customers in Asia. Truly, all of us wine professionals are still trying to figure out how to communicate the unique things that we offer in this hypercompetitive market.

One thing I know: IWM Hong Kong and IWM New York need to succeed at creating experiences for our clients. As much as I enjoy talking about the wines of Soldera (Toscana) and Fantinel (Friuli), I know that nothing will be more effective than having Monica Soldera or Marco Fantinel personally share their intentions, philosophies, methods and challenges with my clients. Therefore, I am thrilled to be hosting both of these producers this week and introducing them to the clients who’ve already heard me talk about them so much in the past year. I’ve also looked forward to this week, because I always learn so much when hosting winemakers—about the wines and also about the industry. I fully intend to enter full-on sponge mode while in the company of Soldera and Fantinel in order to learn from their experience.

I always find it enlightening to understand how the winemakers interpret what they generally see at VinExpo and within the Hong Kong market. When Sergio Esposito spent last July in Hong Kong, he made comparisons between Hong Kong and Naples that were very helpful to our team. Remembering Sergio’s thoughts, I wonder how Hong Kong will compare to Soldera’s expectations in her first visit to our fair city. I also wonder what opportunities and challenges for Fantinel wines Marco will identify in Hong Kong and throughout Asia. What will he see at VinExpo that surprises and impresses him? I can’t wait to find out.

During this hectic week, I’ll surely gain 20 pounds; I have five consecutive winemaker dinners this week. I can’t wait to see, listen, watch, converse and determine what to make of it all. I will report back as soon as my hands are no longer attached to wine glasses or cutlery. Bring on the storm…

Learning to Dine and Wine, Hong Kong Style

Eating with a Mission

Finally after nearly twenty-two hours on a plane, I arrived in Hong Kong. I was slightly tired—and more than slightly hungry. I was hungry to the point of feeling that I would never feel full again. I was quickly proven wrong because the four members of IWM Hong Kong showed me what it is to eat as if there is no tomorrow.

Meals are communal here. Often one person orders a variety of dishes for the whole table, and everyone serves each other. Even when we order individual dishes, once the plates are set down on the table the first action is to offer and to serve a portion to your companions. I was accustomed to sharing my food with my large family at meals, but the ceremony of offering one’s food to others is new to me, and I’m growing to love it—and to fear it.

IWM Hong Kong has quickly adopted the Hong Kong tradition of Dim Sum lunches, and the group customarily orders at least two additional items for the table. At my first Dim Sum lunch with the team, I made the mistake of thinking that a bunch of small pieces would not fill me up as much as one large sandwich. However, by the time dish five of around thirteen was delivered, I was well past full. As each round passed, I was leaving more and more remnants on my plate. More disconcerting, however, was the contrast between my stamina and the stamina of the four other people at my table. They showed no sign of weakness and happily welcomed the suggestion of seconds. By the time the meal finally drew to a close, I was glad to walk back to the office and minimize some of the damage of the meal.

For the past week, I have grown increasingly anxious at meal times. I have to approach each meal with strategy, looking at my eating plan of attack, auguring what food there is to follow, and calculating at what point in the meal I’ll have to submit and call it quits. Moreover, I’ve had so much food to consume that I often can’t even consider adding wine to the agenda. However, last Friday night proved a successful campaign that included food, wine, and fortuitous planning.

At about 9:30pm we decided it was time to pack it in for the day and go grab some dinner. A cab ride across a very long bridge brought us to what is considered the best roast goose in Hong Kong. We brought our own wine to accompany: Fantinel Refosco and Tocai Friulano. As the dishes started to stream from the kitchen, I took a deep breath, bracing myself for impact. The first dish was none other than the whole roast goose. I was reminded of the scene in the perennial holiday movie classic A Christmas Story. Like the one brought to the table of the hapless Parker family, our goose too was brought to the table with beak intact. I couldn’t resist the temptation to quote the movie and say, “Fra-gi-le… Must be Italian.” Thank goodness for the fact that our wine was Italian, so the scene was brought full circle. The Tocai was classic and appropriate—a zippy white wine with Chinese food is a necessity. To my pleasant surprise, the biggest feat of the night was my ability to make it through the entire meal without begging “Uncle,” and how well the Refosco complemented the food.

I’m learning a lot here in Hong Kong. It’s exciting, vibrant and new. I also can’t help but miss my own bed and my customary midday sandwich. In the meantime, I’m off to another Dim Sum lunch, which I’ll enjoy with proper planning.

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