Winemaking sisters in Thailand face tight restrictions on alcohol sales that favour billionaire drinks producers
- Mimi and Nikki Lohitnavy have battled Thailand’s tropical climate, chased off elephants from their vineyards and won over a sceptical public
- Now they must overcome restrictive Thai laws on alcohol sales that favour its duopoly of drinks giants if they are to continue making their award-winning wines
Sisters Mimi and Nikki have battled Thailand’s tropical climate, chased off elephants from their vineyards and won over a sceptical public to their award-winning wine. Now they’re taking on alcohol laws that critics say benefit the kingdom’s billionaire drinks monopolies.
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Rows of syrah, viognier and Chenin Blanc grapes stretch across the 16-hectare (40-acre) GranMonte Estate in the foothills of Khao Yai National Park.
The elevated terrain, three hours outside Bangkok, provides fertile ground for grapes, and an escape from city life; a rust-coloured guest house could be pulled straight from a Tuscany tourism advert.
As they snap selfies in between the vines, visitors run into Nikki Lohitnavy, 33, who studied oenology in Australia and now steers the science behind each bottle.
She painstakingly experiments with grape varieties to see how they respond to the climate – it takes at least six years to see if a decent wine will emerge from the ground.
The plot of land was once a cornfield, but their father, Visooth, transformed the terrain into trellised vines, and as a teenager Nikki joined him in the fields.