Asian wines are gaining respect in Hong Kong’s restaurants

Would you like a glass of white from Bordeaux - or Bali? How about something from the Asoke Valley in Thailand? Thanks to advanced viticultural techniques and a growing appetite for wine in Asia, it is now possible to buy high-quality wines from across Asia, including the hard-to-reach foothills of the Himalayas and hitherto unthinkable locations in the tropics.

Add that to a growing stable of excellent wines from Japan and China and there have never before been as many good Asian options for wine.

“Russian roulette is not my style and, in the past, that was the case with a lot of Asian wines,” says Eddie McDougall, the so-called Flying Winemaker, who lends the moniker to an online wine shop and a travel show about wine in Asia. That has changed in recent years. “It is not a gimmick anymore. I think ‘eat local, drink local’ sits well with a lot of people.”

It certainly sits well with a growing number of Hong Kong restaurants, such as Above & Beyond at Hotel Icon, where sommelier Ace Lee likes to pair dishes such as baked spareribs in tomato and vinegar with Grace Vineyard Tasya’s 2012 Reserve Marselan, which is from Shanxi province. The vineyard sits at a fairly high altitude, in a region with a large variation between day and night temperatures. “That creates a more intense, concentrated juice in the grape,” he says. Its full-bodied fruitiness makes it a good match for dishes with a bright, acidic sauce.