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.

Wine in Mainland China

After Singapore it is on to Beijing via a five hour flight on Singapore Airlines. For any wine enthusiast who has flown this carrier recently, it just may be ‘The World’s Greatest Airline.’ What other airline offers Krug, Clos de Vougeot and Cos d'Estournel as their preferred wine selections! I must remember to congratulate my friends Jeannie Cho Lee (her book Asian Palate is a most interesting read), and Stephen Spurrier on their triumph as wine consultants for this airline.

It is a misty evening when I arrive at the Aman Resort, located at the lovingly restored Summer Palace on the northwestern outskirts of the city.  This is not a hotel but a palace in itself, comprising 53 suites, three restaurants, and a clubhouse constructed around a 5,000 bottle wine cellar. To cap it off, the resort has private access to the 3500 year old Emperor’s Summer Park, spanning an expansive 1800 hectares.

The next day I enjoy an early dinner with Krishner, the Aman's capable Wine Director. The evening is pleasantly passed by discussing his previous assignment at The Setai in Miami (The Antique Wine

Company supplied much of the extensive cellar there as well) and other hot topics related to wine in Asia, including Malaysia's duty-free island of Langkawi and the prospects for fine wine in India.

The following day (still quite jet-lagged) I awake mid-morning to another misty day that quickly turns into rain as the temperature suddenly plummets from 30 to 20 and the humidity drains from the air. Brunch includes a half-dozen delicious Canadian oysters and I spend the afternoon preparing for my important dinner meeting.

This meal is the main purpose of my visit to Beijing, and I am being hosted by one of my clients. A gentleman who was born in the city, but educated in the USA and awardred a fellowship by Harvard, this client has become one of Beijing’s most successful entrepreneurs.  At the arranged time, I am picked up at the Summer Palace in a top-of-the-range Audi and taken to the heart of Beijing’s diplomatic area. It is a bit like Belgravia, but with busier streets.

There are three of us in total, my fellow guest an English expatriate investment banker, and we dine in the private room of a busy Chinese restaurant. The ensuing discussion is wide-ranging and stimulating. We cover the history of the Rothschild and Rockefeller families, the financing of wars, railroad construction, antiques, economics, and Chinese culture. It is also revealed that my client is learning to fly airplanes at the little known Hong Kong Flying Club, something that I did not previously realize and which reminds me of a flying experience I enjoyed at the old Kai Tak airport in my early flying days on one of my first visits to Hong Kong.

During the dinner we don't drink a single glass of wine. We instead consume a continuous parade of thimble-size glasses of white liquor. My host informs me that it is 50% ABV and it is clear that it is a race to see who can empty their bottle first! This is so different than dining with wine. After dinner it is a tradition in China to sing, so we move on to a few rounds of Karaoke accompanied by fine Cognac. I feel as though I learn a lot about Chinese culture during the course of this evening but I also fear for my state of body and mind the next day.

When I eventually rise the following morning I get geared up for business and move to one of Beijing's hippest hotels, the Park Hyatt in the centre of Beijing's Chaoyang business district. It is a glorious blue-sky day and from the 47th floor of the Hyatt I can see the entire city laid out beneath me with unrestricted visibility. This rarity probably only occurs once every few weeks, and I am pleased to see it.

Previously, my concierge at the Aman had mentioned to me the existence of the Chateau Laffitte Hotel in the countryside west of Beijing. The combination of time constraints and having read some adverse notes on Trip Adviser meant that I did not end up staying at Laffitte, but I surmise that it is surely a prospective client and it turns out during my afternoon meeting that there is a connection. Certainly this is an opportunity to be pursued in the future. This particular meeting is also amusing because my importer is Chinese but was educated at France's Metz University, so the entire conversation is conducted in a most interesting blend of ‘Franglais,’ but spoken with a Mandarin accent!

Later in the afternoon I have tea with one of our other Beijing clients. An entrepreneur in the oil business, he explains to me that he throws parties with Lafite but would like to learn more about other wines. This is the trend that all of us in the Western wine trade have been waiting for, and I have been certain of its imminent arrival for some time now. Interestingly, this particular client not only collects wine but also has a passion for antiques. To my surprise, I learn that there are now more ancient Chinese antiques in Europe than in China.

After an aperitif meeting with one of our American clients, who is in the process of establishing a wine investment fund purely focused on the Chinese market, I elect for what I hope will be a quiet night of dining alone at one of Beijing's up-and-coming hip restaurants. The restaurant I am most intrigued by is owned by Michelin-starred Irish chef Brian McKenna.

Upon my arrival however, Brian introduces me to Patricio, one of our wine trade clients from Shanghai who also happens to be dining at the restaurant with his team of salesmen, and further informs me that my table is next to the famous television personality Johnny Chan. Johnny's weekly show on wine draws an average audience of 10 million viewers and has made him China’s biggest TV ‘Wine Celebrity.’ We dine together on Rib of Scottish Angus Beef and discuss fine wine at length; a happenstance which I find is a fantastic and a fitting end to my three day visit to mainland China. I leave with the impression that the wine business in this vast market is still only just beginning and that the scale of future opportunities is awesome.

Travel arrangements booked by Amex Platinum Travel Service.

A Busy Autumn

The last trimester of each year is always my most hectic. Since relocating to France ten years ago, I’ve resigned myself – with only minimal protest - to the fact that one cannot help but be dragged into the vacation month of August. The entire business economy comes to a halt, the schools are all closed, and with the kiddies in tow, away we go with the rest of the nation to embrace the remaining warmth of summer.

When September returns, it is always with a bit of a shock. The days become shorter and cooler, wine lovers move from poolside to fireside and from veranda to dining table, and cellars become progressively depleted as evening consumption increases.

As we move forward in these continually rising market conditions, many wine lovers are keen to replace their diminishing stocks and prepare for the remainder of the year and coming winter months. For wine merchants worldwide, fall is definitely the busiest trading period in the yearly cycle.

This year my business activity has returned with a vengeance. This has included two trips to the United States, one to the Middle East, almost daily travel around Europe throughout September - including Burgundy and Bordeaux during the harvest - and most recently, a seven day visit to the important regions of Singapore and the ever-expanding markets of mainland China and Hong Kong.

Singapore

Although I say the trip was seven days, I do not officially count the weekend of arrival. This adjustment is made because I am such a terrible traveler that jet-lag always seems to wipe out the first two days after any long flight. This recovery period is something I now purposefully make allowances for in my schedule.  On this occasion, my adjustment was spent at the truly splendid resort hotel Cappella on Sentosa Island. A former British Army camp that has been rebuilt as Singapore's modern entertainment capital, Sentosa now features a Universal Studios theme park and a massive casino.

Thankfully, Capella offers an oasis of tranquility amid the lights and noise. It is a fantastic hotel with an exacting attention to detail. Just opened in February 2010, this was already my second visit to the hotel. As a testament to its quality the hotel was also recently listed on the prestigious annual 'Hot List' from Conde Nast Traveller that lists the top 134 new hotels around the world. When the resort staff is expecting you, the effort they put into your welcome is something quite special. They take every opportunity to use your name, know that feather pillows and extra large bath robes is what are required, and they don’t need to be asked twice.
 
Capella's wine list is under development, but it still offers a host of First Growth Bordeaux and fine Burgundy including Romanee Conti. Already it is a wine list that makes the top restaurants in London appear modestly conservative in comparison.

Economically, Singapore is on the cusp of becoming the entertainment capital of South Asia. Since the government granted operational casino licenses to the Malaysian Genting Corporation and the Las Vegas Sands (both of which, incidentally,

are clients of The Antique Wine Company), they have picked up US$500M in tax revenue during the past three months alone!

How even the conservative Singapore Government can get this equation right, in comparison to the UK's aborted gaming reforms, is a debate for another day.

Starting in the 1980’s, Singapore became one of the earliest Far East markets to develop a taste for fine French wine. Due to this head start, it now has one of the most advanced and competitive wine markets (with some of the finest wine stores you will see on the planet) in all of Asia, along with a host of food and wine events for enthusiasts to attend.

Over afternoon tea with one of my importers, a former electronics and real estate entrepreneur who extended his wine hobby into a business, he tells me his current list of great wines includes 1982 Lafleur, Le Pin and Armand Rousseau’s 1985's. This year his operations have grown from six shops to ten, but he emphasizes how fiercely competitive the business is becoming in Singapore.

Later in the evening, my second importer tells me that the country is now so competitive he has actually spent more time selling wine in Russia this year than in Singapore. These days the wine business has few geographic boundaries!

Travel arrangements booked by Amex Platinum Travel Service.