Our ‘Wandering Palate’, Curtis Marsh, declares Austria’s indigenous white grape variety, Grüner Veltliner, the most well-suited, versatile wine style for Asian cuisine.

If one had to name the single most suitable white grape variety in terms of pairing to a broad spectrum of Asian cuisines, including compatibility with spicy heat moreover, congruous with the tropical climate and appealing to the Asian palate, it would unquestionably be grüner veltliner.

Yes, I know it looks terribly difficult to pronounce and easily misinterpreted as a tropical disease, or robust German sausage and sauerkraut dish. Actually, it’s not that difficult to pronounce, try (groon-er vealt-lean-er).

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Rosé of the Year

Rosé skeptics must surely be convinced by now that this is more than a passing fad, with the bourgeoning popularity of rosé and increasingly diverse range of styles with winemakers from divergent regions pursuing worldwide consumer demand.

However, the rose euphoria is being exploited by opportunist (parasitical) wine marketers with a flood of rosé coming on to the market, a large percentage of these wines are made as an afterthought and do the rose movement an injustice. Alas, my choice of “rosé of the year” is intentionally from a region and producer that grows grapes specifically for rose and has been perpetually dedicated to, if not synonymous of this dry style of wine – Provence.

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Our wandering palate cruises down the Margaret River, discovers the pleasures of sin.

The chardonnay crusade continues with a stunner from Peccavi vineyard, raising the stakes among the heavyweights and proven form of Margaret River, Western Australia.

There is a certain expectation of Margaret River chardonnays, both in terms of a fleshy, juicy, intense style and reputation for exemplary quality with the bar set high by well-established icon producers such as Brookland Valley, Cullen, Leeuwin Estate, Moss Wood and Pierro.

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Indelible purity of fruit, fresh acidity and minerally redolent, texturally seamless with exhilarating tension – 2007 is clearly a harmonious vintage augmenting the stellar evolution of Sugarloaf Ridge.

To the frustration of many a wine enthusiast, wine Intel travels a lot easier than the bottles and invariably one finds themselves drooling over the prose of a sublime wine of miniscule production only to realize it is practically unobtainable in these parts.

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The ‘Wandering Palate’ examines the evolution of white wine consumption in Asia with an inclination towards chardonnay.

As wine consumerism trends evolve in Asia, it is interesting how some of the fashions that profoundly affected the world wine stage in the past have completely eluded the wider Asian market.

You may recall the ABC (anything but chardonnay) syndrome. Well this is practically irrelevant in the Asia market, unless you want to change it to ‘another brilliant chardonnay’, as that is exactly the state of play with the Asian palate embracing the lustre of the variety.

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A conversation centred on the rapidly evolving Asia wine market with wine writing colleagues the other day brought to light the growing divergence in preference for wine styles or grape varieties between countries and metropolis’s around the region.

All of us are resigned to the fact red bordeaux or anything with “Chateau” on the label presently rules in mainland China and to a large extent Hong Kong, the umbilical supply chain of this commodity.

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The Wandering Palate predicts a renewed enthusiasm for the wine worlds must unfashionable white grape, particularly in the Asian market – only with an antipodean accent.

Gewürztraminer has unquestionably been the most maligned and misunderstood white grape amongst wine consumers over the last decade, even amongst wine enthusiasts and connoisseurs, it has been and arguably still is, out of favor.

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