Wine Event : Wine for Asia 2006

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This year’s Wine for Asia 2006 is the 4th starting from year 2003 and features close to 180 participant booths with wines from French, Spain, Australia, Italy, New Zealand, India, China, Korea and Germany etc. The whole layout was a lot larger than last year and has a lot more seminar rooms and tasting area. However, what was interesting to me was that some of the participants present last year were absence. This year’s Wine for Asia swung more towards talks and seminars and the mainstay countries exhibiting were from Australia and New Zealand, I found the participation level from the Old World wines like France and Germany diminishing. I was however happy to see the Decanter wine awards tasting area for us to compare our tastebuds with the judges. I am also glad that I met a few like-minded wine enthusiasts there, wine-lovers are friendly folks. My philosophy is that wine is a social drink, the more people to share a bottle of wine, the more joyous the occasion. (provided that there is enough to go around!)

The crowd was pretty thin on the second day of the trade day, however it did pick up on the public day which was a Saturday. I went down in the evening at 5pm almost close to finishing time and many booths were already packing up. There were group of friends enjoying themselves and looking for good bargains as most of the importers were not keen to lug back unfinished bottles of wines they had intended to serve for tastings.

Adam from Le Raisin http://www.le-raisin.com/ had a large open booth with 5 tasting points with friendly ladies helping out with the tastings. He had 2 series from Chile, 2 series from Australia and 1 series from Spain. Here are my recommendations for the wines that I tasted (I tasted the whole range! And the ladies were impressed I was still standing on my feet). Thanks Adam!

- Spain Digma Rioja 2003 Castillo de sajazarra : Intense with good length
- Australian Hunter Valley Pyramid Hill Merlot and Shiraz 2005 : Easy drinking
smooth and very pleasant
- Australian Mount Eyre Double Cabernet : Intense inky fruit with some acidity
- Chilean Carta Vieja Organic Pinot Noir 2004 : Intriguing delicate seductive perfume of
blueberries/grappa. Very different from the non-organic Pinot Noir.
- Chilean House of Morande : Heavy blackcurrents with serious structure of tannins

I am already looking forward to next year’s Wine for Asia!