On Friday night I was at the warehouse with our logistics manager drinking one of our last bottles of Arianna's Frappato when we finally got the call we were waiting for—our pallets had been picked up from the Kwai Tsing Container Terminals and had just been loaded up onto a delivery truck.

Every time a new shipment comes from Europe I get excited, especially if the wines are from a producer we've never worked before with. But there's also a huge element of trepidation, since we can't ever be 100% sure how the wines fared across the long journey.

Often there are breakages, and sometimes some bottles even get stolen by some thirsty port workers in France, who have an admirable taste for good wine. We had heard this time that some boxes were broken, so I was pacing around nervously, expecting the worst.

When the pallets were wheeled in by the under pallet carrier I quickly checked through all the boxes to find the 5 that were broken open. Miraculously, not a single bottle was broken—the cardboard was a little damaged, but the wines themselves were in perfect condition.

What more, all the wines were still cool despite the Hong Kong heat, and what was a 30+ day journey from Europe to Asia.

As you know, we take great care to pay for chilled reefer shipment, which is absolutely imperative since our low-intervention wines need to be treated carefully with love and care. What was great about feeling the bottles 3 days after they had arrived in Hong Kong (they have to sit and clear customs first), was that their temperature was a testament to the shipping company's ability to keep these wines safe. 

Buy That Fridge

But after they arrive in our warehouse there's still a lot to think about. We do ship on an air-conditioned van, but Hong Kong is an incredibly tricky place to keep wine. Now that winter is over and the sweltering heat of summer is starting to pile in, we really do hope you have a wine fridge (even a small one!) to keep our fragile wines healthy.

Of course it's not like we aren't going to sell to anyone who doesn't own a wine fridge, but note that for any wine lover in Hong Kong, having one is essential to drinking.

It's not only about starting a collection, but also about drinking your wines at the right temperature. Room temperature here can often be in the high 20's to 30's (or fluctuating depending on air-conditioner use), which isn't ideal at all for wines.

Personally I have a pretty large fridge which I keep at 15ºC for both red and whites, while Anne and Yasmin keep theirs at 11ºC since it's a lot smaller, and they basically are only putting whites and roses in there for the summer. If you are an impatient wine lover like those two, then consider getting a separate small fridge just for keeping wine around 11-13ºC for immediate "cellar temperature" drinking (for whites). 

Either way, it doesn't matter what brand of wine fridge you are interested in, but as a duty to yourself, your wines, and us, please get one before the summer hits.

Of all the things most associated with wine snobbery, blind tasting must surely be one of the most derided. We all have the caricature of the old French sommelier (replete with slicked back, oiled hair) locked away in a dusty subconscious cellar, sniffing a glass and declaring with absolute confidence—this is a 1945 Margaux!

After that moment, his audience gasps and then collects themselves, before clapping furiously. What skill! What knowledge.

In Hong Kong, replace the old French sommelier (because all the sommeliers now in the city are exceedingly handsome, young, and suave) with a stubborn collector—and you pretty much have the same scenario.

It sounds like a lot of bullshit, but does blind tasting actually have any practical use? 

This is ridiculous. I blind tasted this as 2011 Syrah from N. Rhone, but I couldn't be any further from the mark. This is still very young, 100% Gamay from this age old producer...very structured, chalky tannins, spicy red fruit. I can't believe 11 year old Beaujolais is like this. #hkfoodies #hkwine #winehk #chateaudesjacques

A photo posted by Cork Culture (@corkculturehk) on Dec 9, 2015 at 5:47am PST

Don't think you know everything about wine

To be sure, it can be humbling to think you know a lot about wine and then suddenly miss the target on every bottle you taste blind. And modesty is certainly something everyone needs more of in life. It's best that even after trying lots of wine people shouldn't be too full of themselves; wine is all about discovery anyway, so let's not let ego get in the way.

For example, in the wine above, someone who says they hate all Beaujolais might be immensely surprised to taste Chateau des Jacques' Moulin-a-Vent, especially from a ripe, long-living vintage like 2005. First of all, it's definitely not light and fruity like the stereotype of Beaujolais, secondly it shows that good Gamay can age, and thirdly it proves even Louis Jadot (who own the estate) can make interesting wines. And before anyone writes me an irate comment (probably because they either distribute or own lots of Jadot), relax—there's nothing wrong with Jadot wines; there's just nothing great about them either.

There are two lessons that I took back from this bottle. The first was that after drinking so much natural, clean Beaujolais from producers such as Foillard, Lapierre, Lapalu, Thillardon, and Yann Bertrand, another side of Gamay exists. Whereas the aforementioned producers mostly eschew new oak and usually ferment in a blend of cement vats/old oak, Chateau des Jacques is marked heavily by its heavy-handed use of oak—and after 11 years its still massively apparent. As admittedly I hadn't tried such an oaked Beaujolais in years, it threw me off the trail. Personally I'm not the biggest fan of this style because it didn't really taste like Gamay or Pinot, but it might serve as a good introduction for Bordeaux / Rhone fans to get into Beaujolais.

Secondly, despite the amount of intervention from the winemaker, it was a great chance to see the terroir of Moulin-a-Vent even through the oak, as the intensity of the cru still came through. Also since nobody ever really carries extensive stock of aged Beaujolais, every little glimpse we can get of a vintage like 2005 is an interesting reference.

Drinking #raveneau 2011 Butteaux on a cold, rainy night was quite a last second surprise. Briny, mineral, with quite a bit of lemony ripeness. Needs a lot more ageing - dare I say that #pattesloup make an equally riveting Butteaux for 1/3rd the price? #hkfoodies #hkwine #winehk #biodynamic #chablis

A photo posted by Cork Culture (@corkculturehk) on Jan 22, 2016 at 8:18pm PST

Free yourself of the label

Drinking blind frees yourself from prejudgement, which is normally inevitable as just knowing the region will already start to influence your thoughts. It also will reveal a lot of famous names for what they are—good (occasionally great, and almost always too young) wines that are overpriced due to excessive demand from insatiable wine lovers who insist on drinking the best, or what is generally considered the best, exclusively. This goes for people who worship Selosse when maybe some of his protégées are doing equally well for far less, or for people who prefer a young famous Rhone to an aged lesser-known Rhone from an equally good producer.

Just a few weeks ago I had the good fortune to experience a 2011 Butteaux from Raveneau, generally accepted as one of the two best producers in Chablis. His wines are legendary, not cheap at all, and electric. Even if we drank it blind it would have been amazing, bold, and an exception to the humdrum Chardonnay that many producers try to pass off as Chablis. But the question that came to mind was, for $1200, is there better Chablis now at a lower price?

I definitely believe so, and think the Raveneau will probably justify its reputation and price in another 5-10 years. At the moment however, I'll try to speak without bias when I say that Thomas Pico (disclaimer: yes I know we sell his wines), makes an equally fresh and transparent expression of Chablis right now. Because honestly speaking, the Raveneau wasn't that profound. It was everything we love in Chablis and it's 100% an incredible wine, but it didn't exceed our expectations of what Chablis could be. There were hints of the brine, and even some deeper strands of smoke, but as of right now, this is not showing its full potential. If tasted blind, few would give it a second chance. But because we know it's Raveneau, we know it has the chops to be great in the future. 

But $1200 for a wine that's meant to be consumed years on? For the cellar, yes. For a restaurant, no.

For as long as I can remember since starting this business, people have asked me: can natural wine age?

It's a fair question. Organic and natural wine means either zero sulphites or at least a lower amount of sulphites, which is a historical preservative used to keep wine stable. 

Even for our wines we prefer a little bit, to make the journey across the ocean a little easier. But a "little bit" is far from the industrial amounts of preservatives used in supermarket wine, and enough to help a bottle of wine age with maturity and grace.

Case in point: Alice et Olivier De Moor - Chablis 'Rosette' 2007.

A friend of ours recently helped us source just 11 bottles of this wine. He had bought it for himself back in 2011, and aged it quietly as it laid forgotten in his warehouse for four years.

Tonight, I popped open a bottle while cooking with my father, just hopefully expecting that the wine hadn't spoiled over the past 8 years.

I shouldn't have even worried. This was an astounding bottle of Chablis which was made by:

"long alcoholic and malolactic fermentation in old oak. Aged 11 months in old oak. No fining, no filtration or cold stabilization. Slight addition of sulfur dioxide only at the time of bottling. No fining, no filtration or cold stabilization."

This honestly is pure majesty - Chablis at its near finest. It's really a reminder of how natural winemaking can indeed age well (a friend sourced me this case of 07, which he aged since '11 himself) since this is so clean. Chardonnay with definition, cut, and focus. Chablis needs age, and this delivers. #aliceetolivierdemoor #demoor #naturalwine #organicwine #chablis #hkwine #winehk

A photo posted by Cork Culture (@corkculturehk) on Nov 10, 2015 at 5:04am PST

As my caption noted, I was really impressed at the purity of this Chardonnay. It really was an exemplary display of terroir and place. 

It's also really important to note that Alice & Olivier De Moor are the mentors to our own Thomas Pico of Pattes Loup. Stylistically, they are similar in their combination of concentration and transparency.

Anyone interested in learning more about this estate and Pattes Loup should read this New York Times article about organic producers in Chablis. Most people work mechanically in the region, and when people like Pico and the De Moor's start to work differently, the results are so noticeable. 

P.S. As an answer to my somewhat rhetorical question: Yes it can age! And at times with traditional wines like Chardonnay from Chablis, it definitely does need age to display the character of the region.

The best way to drink #occhipinti is by the bottle, on the street. #winehk #hkwine #naturalwine

A photo posted by Cork Culture (@corkculturehk) on Sep 11, 2015 at 6:31pm PDT

Whenever some of our wine loving friends invite a group of people together for dinner and the topic falls invariably and quickly to wine, the first thing the old hands of the group ask the newcomers is: What do you like to drink? 

Aside from the genuine curiosity of one inquisitive wine lover to the other, it's hard to deny that there's always an underlying challenge in that statement—basically, "do you know what you are talking about?" The person who poses the question is throwing out half an assessment and half a challenge.

While the assessment aspect is socially useful to avoid embarassment, the challenge is purely to satisfy one's ego.

The challenge makes wine more of a game where people compare their knowledge, pressing here and there to find out if you are a wine connoisseur on their level or not. People want to find out what your favourite wineries are, what hole they can pigeon you into. Are you a boring Bordeaux and Burgundy baron, a Super-Tuscan romantic, a natural wine hipster, or a New World hedonist?

It's very well likely that you could  be one of these things, or even all of them. Does it matter? Not really. Wine should always be about discovery, and even if someone has become accustomed to drinking only from one or two regions their whole life, it isn't too late to slowly introduce them to new things. All you have to do is look at this huge trend for Burgundy nowadays to realise that even older wine lovers get peer pressured into liking something they might not have previously wanted to try at all. 

So usually when we talk about wine, we love to ask: What are you drinking now?

What old-school producer did you just discover, or what strange new varietal has just found its way to our shores, or what awesome new kid is doing what, where?

As the New York Times wine writer Eric Asimov keeps mentioning, there's never been as good a time to be a wine lover than now. Everyone is doing new things—even Château Margaux and Palmer are experimenting with or have gone biodynamic—so it doesn't make sense anymore to be stubborn or unadventurous in your choices.

The best winery for years may no longer be the top dog anymore; alternatively, it may be possible to get a higher quality wine from a different producer in your favourite region for far less.

We are following our own advice this Mid-Autumn by passing up wine and having a beer. Not just any beer of course... A sour raspberry wild ale brewed by the Danish magician #mikeller in #deproefbrouwerij - playful, tart, and earthy.

A photo posted by Cork Culture (@corkculturehk) on Sep 27, 2015 at 4:51am PDT

In a way, it's the craft beer mentality: look for collaborations between two awesome breweries, try the latest release from this Danish or Swedish super star brewery as they travel the world, and retail wise, keep buying new beers each time you visit the shop—while keeping in mind some safe references for regular drinking.

In wine, identify the old masters and look for their apprentices and protégés. It's the secret to being a smart wine drinker, and will give you more satisfaction for your money in the long run.

Geeking out is about exploring, and the word itself is about claiming back the stigma behind being a curious drinker. While many beer and wine lovers do flirt dangerously with too much of a good thing, the process of discussing and learning more about interesting booze is undoubtedly an awesome past-time. Being a wine lover just gets a bad rap, since the price of many of your father's first-growths are laughably overpriced, making everyone assume wine is for the rich only. 

As we know here, that's a lazy fallacy. Keep most of your drinking wines at $150-$500, buy 2-3 to experience as they age, and don't play favourites.

Except good Beaujolais. Always buy good Beaujolais.

#Foillard is a king in Morgon. Someone please ship us a magnum of this juice. #naturalwine #winehk #hkwine

A photo posted by Cork Culture (@corkculturehk) on Sep 29, 2015 at 4:49am PDT

P.S. We do realise that in our staff introductions that we list our favourite regions. But we are always open to new things and new producers!

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