A-grade start to wine appreciation
WHEN LAURA Budlong, director of wine company Force 8 Cellars, made a batch of bathtub wine for her chemistry class at high school in Southern California, she was far too young to drink it. At the age of 13, she wasn't even allowed to possess alcohol and needed a police escort to bring the wine on to her high school campus.
Her teacher gave her an A, although Budlong says: 'It was lousy because it was made from wine concentrate. I had to dump in lots of sulphur because it was exposed to too much oxygen since it was made in the bathtub. I tasted it, and it was drinkable, no worse than a lot of the stuff you find today.'
Her interest in wine piqued, she attended the Lycee Agricole et Viticole de Beaune in Burgundy. Budlong was only 15, the only American at the school and one of the few females. 'It was a technical school for winemaking,' she says. 'It was a high school, not university - they have these kinds of schools around the country, wherever they make wines. I was able to take a course with Professor Peynaud, who's a renowned professor of oenology in France. I had the opportunity to taste hundreds and hundreds of wines.
'All my classmates were sons of French winery owners from all over the country. The school had a policy - when the harvest started, all the students had to go out and pick grapes. I went to Aloxe-Corton, to a lovely vineyard.
'The owners, the Senards, let me work with them, and they took pity on me and invited me into the cuverie [fermentation room] to assist and observe how they made the wine. It's a lot of fun to make a vintage wine, that's when you realise the value of any wine and how each vintage is different.'
After finishing at the Lycee, Budlong returned to the United States and studied international relations at Georgetown University. She came to Hong Kong 15 years ago and started a fashion and textile trading business, Force 8 International, which evolved into Force 8 Cellars.
Because her wine collection is in several countries, Budlong says she can't recall exactly how many bottles she has. 'I am still partial to Burgundies, which is reflected in my collection. I have about 25 cases of lovely Burgundies, still in Europe, some 64s, 78s and 82s.
'In California, I have a range of Californian wines, probably about 20 cases. In Hong Kong . . . I have to distinguish between the wines for the company and my own. I've set aside some rare, special vintages - 66, 78, 80, 81, 82 and 86 of Badia a Colti Buono, which is a chianti classico reserva, a super Tuscan Sangiovetto, some older Amarone, some Ca' de Gancia, some Leconfields from Australia. From Argentina I have some Luigi Bosca, I bought some back vintages, the 88 and 87 malbec, it's drinking beautifully now, and I have the 97 from the Chilean house of Morande, it's my favourite wine right now. It's interesting to taste them and see how they age.
'I'm open to everything, but the key is not to buy old wines that are expensive, it's to buy new wines that will be great in the future.'
