Achieving interesting and harmonious pairings of food and wine is one of Jeannie Cho Lee's major areas of focus in her new capacity as head of education at The Fine Wine School, a joint venture she has established in partnership with Berry Bros & Rudd, one of the world's oldest wine merchants with more than 300 years of history behind it.
Cho Lee recently passed the famously difficult examination to become accredited as a Master ofWine. She will be allowed to use the title later this year, after being formally inducted as one of only 265 Masters ofWine in the world.
Korean born Cho Lee is also a gourmet, so it comes as something of a surprise when she says: 'Talking about which wine matches with exactly which dish actually makes absolutely no sense 99 per cent of the time for an Asian consumer.'
The traditional way to serve food throughout most of Asia involves presenting many dishes at once to be shared by a group of diners, making course-to-course wine pairing impractical, so Cho Lee advocates versatile wines that will partner several different dishes reasonably well.
We asked her to consider 10 Hong Kong favourites and give her recommendations.
Sushi and Sashimi