Wedding gown, check. Tux, check. Venue and cake, check. And now, most importantly, what wine are you serving with your wedding?
For the traditional Chinese, weddings usually go hand in hand with red wine, preferably a Bordeaux blend. But really, the colour is really just for good luck, seldom would you have any good red wines at Chinese weddings. But really, weddings are really the best excuse to indulge and celebrate, and the clear choice is of course Champagne.
Weddings are a big ordeal in Hong Kong. To begin with, the bride and groom always need to get up at the crack of dawn. Cranky and maybe slightly even hungover, they need to show their respect to elders, play stupid games, go from point a to point b to point c back to point a. Its exhausting.
Sangiovese is a widely planted grape in Italy. From central Italy, this grape is used in the production of Chianti, Vino Nobile di Montepulciano, and many other wines such as famous/ infamous “Super Tuscans”. A very adaptable varietal which can survive in different soils, this grape is best known in the form of a Brunello di Montalcino.
“I’ve got a motor-car and a basket of strawberries and a bottle of Château Peyraguey—which isn’t a wine you’ve ever tasted, so don’t pretend. It’s heaven with strawberries.”
We visited Hunter Valley during our trip down under. After a 2 hour drive from Sydney, we emerged from suburbia to the lush landscape of wine country. In the midst of harvest season, the vineyards were in full vivacity, where rows and rows of vines were trembling under its own weight. We jumped out of the car, exposed to the scorching sun, ready for some palate adventures in air-conditioned spaces.
When you think of Hungarian wine, the first thing that comes into mind is their famous Tokaji Aszu. But how much do we know of this wine country beyond their dessert wines? The official sommelier of Hungary’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs held a workshop at Hotel Icon’s Vinoteca to educate wine lovers on the impressive evolution and spectrum of wines from Hungary.
We have been playing a game of vino, where we serve a bottle blind for the other to guess the wine varietal and region of production.
This bottle of wine I have kept laying down in my “cellar”. For many years, it stayed in the dark. I had decided to drink it tonight.
After removing the foil, it was evident that the wine was ruined. The cork was soaked in brick red. My heart was broken. Doomed is my fate, there will be no wine for me tonight.
Obsessed with all things Sicilian, I was treated to a dinner at Messina last week. The chef’s menu offered a 4-course dinner with wine pairing, and I must say that the food was great but the wine pairing not as great. However, there were snippets of brilliance during the dinner that I would like to share.
