i think that apart from beer, whisky, cognac, port, perhaps some other spirits and tea in this part of the world, i have rarely come across another drink than wine that generates as much passion in people.  certainly, i have never heard people waxing lyrical about orange juice or coca cola (except perhaps in advertising jingles on tv...).

and so this week, i was charmed by an email i received from a perfect stranger who would love that i consider buying his "strange carafes" which are really pieces of art.

my favourite, the "little heart" as below, would set me back 1000 euro should i decide to order it.  however, i will have to make it quick because there are only 8 available, all numbered and signed by the artist.

Published by jc on November 9, 2009

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when i told the good people of the sampler that i was in london for my final wset diploma exam, they looked at each other, became silent, and in unison, solemnly said, "aahh, the big one..."

they were not kidding, i tell you...  definitely not a walk in the park...  in fact, if anyone thinks that working as a wine judge or a wine buyer is "fun", they should attempt to pass the wset diploma unit 3 exam... any idea that such an occupation is "fun" will quickly and most certainly evaporate...

in fact, the entire diploma certification is designed to test how much one is dedicated to the wine business.  not designed for the amateur, the diploma qualification forms future wine buyers and those who intend to pursue a serious career in the field of wine trading.

the diploma consists of 6 units to be completed within 3 years at most. 5 of those units have rigorous blind tastings and theory exams with the toughest by far being the unit 3 which focus on light wines of the world (the entire world, i must add).

and so, the unit 3 exam is divided in 2 parts: a blind tasting in the morning and a 3-hour theory paper in the after-noon.

the blind tasting is a 2-hour tasting in which 12 wines are grouped into 4 separate flights and are evaluated to answer 4 separate questions:

1) which grape are the wines made of;

2) which regions is the flight of wines from;

3) based on a specific wine region, what are the levels of quality for each wines in the flight;

4) of the 3 last wines in the last flight: where are they from and what grapes are they made of.

each questions requires rigorous analysis as well as sound and logical explanations of choices.

the theory exam requires the candidate to answer thoroughly and exhaustively to 5 questions out of a list of 7.  here, it is expected that enough information will be written to fill up about 2 1/2 pages for each questions and all of it must be relevant and informative.  anything about the wine world is fair game, for example, one year, one question was: "what are the advantages and disadvantages of south africa as a wine producing region?".  now, try to write about this interesting topic non-stop for 30 minutes and fill-up the necessary pages...

in fact, the success rate of the unit 3 exam hovers between 42 and 55% and so it is not everyone who passes - as i said, not a walk in the park...

so what, in my opinion, helps a candidate pass?  i am sure many have their own idea on how to answer this question.  for me, i can think of the following:

tasting:

- taste, taste, taste, and taste: that is the key;

- understand the structure of tasting and don't only recite bland and cliché-ed tasting notes;

- make the wset systematic approach to tasting (level 4) your most intimate and very best friend, ever;

- most importantly, understand what constitute quality: intensity, complexity, balance, and length and be prepared to explain it succinctly, but thoroughly and completely, so that all component are considered and the answer is sound and logical;

- practise tasting blind as much as possible and practise tannins, acidity, sweetness, and alcohol levels separately;

- spend an inordinate amount of time learning the "theoretical" descriptions (acidity, tannins, aromas and flavours) of each grape varieties and wine regions - there is no point ever to describe a cabernet sauvignon as light in tannins, it is never light in tannins - grapes & wines from oz clarke is a must read for this and perhaps my varieties-profile table can be useful as well;

- spend an incredible amount of time to taste and compare the wines of each regions of the world against each other and understand absolutely clearly the difference between new and old worlds and blends vs not blended wines;

- take an unhealthy interest in wine writers'descriptions and tasting notes in magazines, websites, books, monthly publications and the like;

- most importantly, practise, absolutely and as much as possible, under exam conditions.  one must absolutely not underestimate how much being exam-nervous and being surrounded by 300 other nervous candidates can affect one's concentration to taste an alcoholic beverage at 10h00 in the morning - taste blind, taste often, and taste under the clock.

theory:

- read the oxford companion to wine, then re-read it, then re-read it again;

- read jancis's & hugh's wine atlas of wine from cover to cover;

- subscribe to and assiduously read "decanter" magazine from cover to cover every month;

- follow religiously the wset "diploma specification";

- become intimately familiar with the wset annual examinator's report;

- practise answering questions of past exams, closed books and within 30 minutes;

- read, read, read, and read some more about the wine industry every day;

- be interested about every wine regions of the world and be able to describe each one under the following topics: climate & topography, grapes, viticulture, vinification, legal & trade;

- take a particular interest in acronyms, especially: inra, awri, inao, civc, kwv, axr1, and the like;

- think like a wine buyer and how any topic will affect the success of a wine/variety that you intend to import and/or commercialise in your shop/restaurant/bar/wholesale business.

in the end however, one must absolutely not underestimate exam conditions.  i tell you, you will have no time to think.  your arm and hand must write and write non-stop for 2 hours of the tasting and 3 hours of the theory.  you must know your material so that it comes out instinctively and fluently.

even if my lovely maria wished me to at least enjoy some of it, with wine being my so called "passion", believe me, there is nothing to enjoy about that exam, nothing to enjoy the week, and the days before it and nothing to enjoy about this exam during the 2-3 months after it until you get your results.

but if you are passionate about the subject of wine, and if like me, you must call for your results and hear about them at 2 o'clock in morning from teh other side of the world, smack in the middle of a dinner party with friends, believe me that the sweet sound of the simple word "pass" will make all the hardship of long hours studying all the more worthwhile...

"try to enjoy"...

Published by jc on October 26, 2009

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somehow, i would not be surprised that the michelin people were expecting controversy with the launch of their new hong kong & macau restaurants guide. that some people are not happy and/or disagree with their ranking seems to be "business as usual" for them and i can only guess that they were well prepared with talking points and statistics well ahead of the press conference.

what disappoints me however, is the lame reactions of some publicity-seeking food critics and other food-related people in hong kong. not one comment i read showed any kind of pride and/or even satisfaction that there would even be a michelin guide dedicated to hong kong.  instead, we hear the same old cliché comments that "westerners (french inspectors) can not possibly understand chinese food, therefore the guide must be of no value".  dismissing the guide as irrelevant and simply being a "dialogue between idiots" is pushing it.

this, from the very same people who each day, no doubt, drink bordeaux and/or other french wines and will go on and on "authoritatively" about the fact that this wine is poor but that one is "definitely superior".  as they are not french, how can they possibly understand how to evaluate the quality of french wines?  unless they are relying on robert parker, an american, to tell them what to drink?

now, can someone please explain to me what is so mysterious about chinese cuisine so that i can understand why a food critic who is not chinese could not know the difference between something that is cooked properly and something that is not cooked properly?  or that the texture for the particular ingredient is or is not what it could/should be? or that the food eaten today is not consistent with the food eaten yesterday and/or last week? what makes chinese food so special that a food lover who is not chinese could not possibly appreciate the cuisine in all of its glory?

this is a pity. because i have always thought hong kong should be an accessible and sought after food destination of the world because of it's diversity and because of the passion hong kong people have for food.  with this kind of condescending attitude, i am not sure westerners will feel encouraged (or perhaps "able to understand") to explore the foods of china and the many wonders it offers.

the fact that high profile and internationally respected michelin finally launches a guide in hong kong should be celebrated as a first step in the right direction to firmly establish hong kong as a gastronomic hub, not just a shallow, cynical and commercially-driven wine hub but a proper food & wine lovers destination worthy of a true "world city".

hong kong deserves to be a gastronomic hub and those cliché hong kong food critic would do well to take this as signal that it is time to grow up and for hong kong restaurateurs to become serious about the business of restaurants and give us consistent, well cooked, and well prepared food using quality ingredients, and to be creative and wholesome in their approach.

no, now is not the time for moaning about westerners evaluating hong kong's food, it is time to celebrate the first step in this journey of a thousand miles: triple cheers to lung king heen at the four season and double cheers to bo innovation in wanchai who will lead the way to make hong kong the gastronomic hub it deserves to be!

Published by jc on December 4, 2008

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not long ago, hk magazine had a leader with the same title and the whole issue was devoted to this new hk fad of dinning at home instead of going out.

with this crazy panic on wall-street and on other markets around the world, the article now seem more prescient than we could have imagined just a few weeks ago.  will the current economic crisis makes us discover the inner jaimie oliver or the julia child that lie within us all??

with food prices going up all over and with wine prices that are not going down even if the import tax was abolished 7 months ago you can bet your next dinner that i will be fitting up my kitchen, dust those cobwebs off my cook books, and get down and dirty in front of my own stove.

Published by jc on October 22, 2008

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searching google for something else the other day, i came across a great little place called the 'corner kitchen', a boutique cooking school ran by vivian herijanto not far from hong kong's soho.

the website oozes with passion and it promises us to teach us the "hows and the whys behind culinary techniques".  the classes are offered by appointment only for up to 8 people.  3 hours in length, we can choose between 4 types of classes: for entertainment, for technique, by region, or based on a theme.  given in a cute little kitchen and dinning room by vivian herself, formally trained in culinary arts at new york's institute of culinary education, she also has guest instructors on her team to bring diversity to the experience.

to me, this sounds like a fantastic idea to get together with friends on a friday evening or saturday after-noon for some good fun while learning something we love and you can bet that i will arrange something like that real soon.

corner kitchen - g/f, no. 20 po hing fong, sheung wan, tel. +852 2803 2822

Published by jc on August 7, 2008

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several months ago, dorotha introduced me to facebook.  the moment i registered i was hooked (see my profile here) and i created a group called hong kong wine lovers.  ever since, i have worked hard to build the membership so that members can share wine tips and inside information on the group's wall

a few weeks ago, a member, dominique chiarla, suggested we do more with the group.  so today, i am launching an experiment:  i am inviting group members to post their tasting notes on the group's wall.  i want to test winespeak.  my hope is that non-professional get to write their impressions about their wine experience in real language and not winespeak.  i want to listen to the voice of the people so that i can learn how non-wine-writers relate to wine. 

i hope this will help me prove a point that wine professionals in general are not necessarily in touch with the reality of wine on a day-to-day basis...  but then again, i might be wrong...

Published by jc on July 5, 2008

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gregory de'eb who is in charge of crown wine cellars in hong kong has just sent me an email with a few tips related to the import wine duty that has been abolished today in hong kong , he says:

1- as of today, no duty paid on wine - included those held in bonded facilities

2- administrative controls remain in place until the month of may when legco is expected to pass the budget which means that although no duty will be paid, all documents and procedures are same as before, so if you plan to (as i will in april) bring back a lot of wine in your suitcase, you should still declare them at custom and if you have wines in bonded facilities or planning to import wine you still need to submit the paperwork

3- that tax can go up again when they present the budget in 2009 and so you should think ahead and benefit from this period of duty free to bring all of your wines into hong kong wherever you keep it.  the good people of crown cellars will help you transport and store it should you need it.

crown wine cellar is a wonderful facility in shouson hill where they offer wine storage services as well as rooms for wine related actitivities be they private enjoyment of your wine or larger events surrounded in a fine atmosphere.  recipient of the unesco asia-pacific award, it is located in the bunkers the british military used 70 years ago as a weapon and ammunition depot. being 20 meters deep into the ground with walls 2-meter thick, crown wine cellar has installed state of the art equipment for the finest storage of its kind.

Published by jc on February 27, 2008

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a fantastic news today.  thanks to a ''record budget surplus'', the hong kong government has decided to abolish the import tax on wine and beer.

already last year, it slashed the duty from 80% to 40%, starting today, it will be 0.

however, cynical has i am, i think this news is great mainly for distributors, restaurants and bar, which have not reduced wine prices by much after the first round of cuts.

in any case, let's hope that 0 duty will translate into higher quality offerings across the board and you can be sure that i will keep my eyes on this after a few months of ''inventory liquidation''.

for sure however, you can expect me to buy a 2nd suitcase and load it with wine when i return from vinitaly later this month.

cheers and 40 x cheers!

Published by jc on February 27, 2008

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ever since i have started my wine studies with wset, i have had this thought that generally speaking wine is, let's be honest, generally poorly marketed.  think of france with their difficult labels to understand, left alone relate to, think about italian wines with their thousands of grapes which are not well understood by general consuemrs,  think of vintages, regions, red wines, white ines, fortified wines, sweet wines, sparkling wines, cheap wines, out of this world expensive wines.  this list goes on and on.

my chief concern these days is to find a ''formula'' that will be key to selling millions and millions of bottles of wine.  i am thinking about this days and nights, nights and days.

the other day, i was reading tom peters' book ''trends'' in which he reports that ''about 94% of all household purchases are decided by women''.  now that is a great many decisions.  that is also a lot of power women have in the choice of products that will show up on the table at dinner time.

yet, look at the way wine is marketed.  ask most women who are in the business, including award winning sommeliers and master of wine and they will tell you how patronizing most men are towards them when they talk about wine around them.  jancis robinson has written plenty of times about this in particular in this article linked here.

and so, it is in this context that i am now quite interested in how zonin is marketing their ''primo amore'' wine series at the moment.  at vinitaly china in shanghai last week, the back-drop of their stand was this huge poster from their marketing campaign that is obviously targeted at women: ''wine. it's all about love'' showing this ansome italian hunk.  my wife certainly noticed.  in fact she kept asking me to go and taste the wines...  here is the poster:

their PRIMO AMORE collection is well made, and i suspect could quickly become the ''vino della casa'' of more than one of my lady friends who are still single and like to have a glass or two at dinner each night.  even my wife asked the attendant at the booth where she could buy it in hong kong...

one of them is a red sangiovese + merlot, the other a white which is 100% pinot grigio, and the last one is a ''frizzante'' which garganega and moscato. 

as you can see, well selected grapes, all easy to drink, all pleasant, and all conducive to ''amore''. 

now, that is a campaign that seeks to establish an emotional bond with it's consumers.

might be a cliché for some, but certainly brilliant for me!

Published by jc on December 2, 2007

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the annual electronic fair is on right now in hong kong and visiting on saturday, i saw dozens and dozens of stands showing all kinds of wine cabinets and all kinds of wine gadgets in various shape or form.

a booth that particularily caught my attention was showing this machine that seemed to come straight out of frakenstein's lab: a transmogrifier of wine!

it claims to use a scientifically proven physical process to age the wine in the space of a few seconds or minute.  simply buy a young chateau petrus, say, insert it in the transmogrifier, type some specific year that you want to taste on the key board, turn on the switch, let is do its magic work, and, voilà!  perfect and ready to drink and you just saved 20-25 years of cellaring.

no kidding.  if anyone is interested, i can helo you contact the supplier and arrange a container to b delivered to your address within 60 days.

see the machine in person below:

Published by jc on October 14, 2007

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in london last week, i took some time to visit the wonder bar in selfridges on oxford street.  i read about it in decanter magazine a few months back and ever since i have drooled all over this concept and so i had to see it for myself.

the bar is actually tucked in between their food court and wine shop and it revolves around their idea of a ''wine juke box'' which is actually the ''wine serving system'' developped by a company called enomatic.

for a price, you buy a ''wine card'' which is a smart card that you can replenish with funds as much as you like.  you then approach the ''juke box'' which is a long row of bottles placed inside the serving system, insert your card, select your wine and the size of the poor, put your glass under the spout and ''voilà'', you can help yourself to a very wide range of wines and they change the selection on a regular basis. 

the dispenser offers 3 sizes of pour: a sip, 1/2 glass, and a full glass. it's temperature controled and, thanks to a system of pipes and nitrogen, it keeps the wine fresh for weeks and weeks.

this is an absolutely fantastic way to go about and discover wine.  you can taste before you buy and in this way discover without fear that you will end up with some ''piquette'' that will scortch your palate at every sip.

i was told by the waiter that happy hours are absolutely packed with the london smart set who come there to taste and try and get pissed on good stuff so that they can wake up the next morning without the headaches and start the whole process again night after night. 

i was also told that they put a chateau petrus 1976 of which they sold so many they had to stop to keep some bottles for their regular well heeled patrons.  people were just curious to taste the legendary wine even if it set them back 32 pounds a sip...

and this is what keeps me awake at night!!   this system will totally democratize the wine world and finally make accessible the kinds of wines that some people can not afford a whole bottle or who simply can't drink a whole one because they are not part of some wine group, or that their spouse/friends do not drink.

this system could start a revolution: finally away with vinegar by the glass that they serve us all over hong kong (and most of the world!).

i tell you, this machine will revolutionise the way wine is sold and any serious wine shop which really cares about promoting wine and worth its grain of salt will jump on this.  what better way to encourage people to discover new wines and trade up? no i do not have a vested interest into enomatic other than hoping to see more and more such system installed so that i can finally enjoy wines by the glass.

i am seriously looking into it for hong kong and i have a super great concept in mind, anyone interested to invest in my project?

Published by jc on October 9, 2007

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