Everything You Need to Know About Thai Wine

by Victor Paul Borg for International Living

Wednesday, May 16, 2007
Bangkok, Thailand

Dear International Living Reader,
Thai wines are fruity, light in body, low in tannins, and slightly sweet--characteristics well suited for spicy food. Unlike traditional Western wines, which can taste bitter and acidic with spicy food, Thai wines--particularly the whites--are enhanced by the peppery and sweet vitality of Thai dishes. The Shiraz from Siam Winery is less peppery than traditional Shiraz, and spicy food enhances its bite. (On its own, however, I found the Shiraz rather flat. The same applies for the Pokdum--wine from the indigenous grape that has an earthy taste and which winemakers have been spiking with other grapes.)

After 10 years, Laurent Metge-Toppin, a French oenologist, is still grappling with the vexations thrown up by making wines in tropical climes. The vines yield grapes twice yearly, but that's not necessarily a boon, as both yields (especially the second harvest in September) produce grapes low in sugar. "One option with the inferior harvest is to do a fruit juice," Laurent says. "Another is to make a different wine from each harvest and label it as such, although with the Malaga Blanc we have been mixing juice from the two harvests into one production and it seems to work."

Cultivated in the delta of the Chao Phraya River, the Malaga Blanc is one in the Monsoon Valley series of wines developed by Laurent. He reports the soil here is similar to soil in Portugal, and that if you haven't heard of Thai wine, you may mistake the Malaga Blanc for Portuguese wine.

"When I recommend the wine to my customers, who are mostly tourists, they try it out of curiosity without expecting much," says Tiwa Yenwattna, the award-winning sommelier of Le Normandie, the plush French restaurant at the Oriental Hotel in Bangkok. "Many are surprised to find that it's better than they had imagined, and some even buy bottles to take home with them." I ask Tiwa how the wines fare with non-spicy foods such as the French dishes at Le Normandie. "Chateau De Loie [a winery in Northern Thailand] produces an extra-dry wine that can be matched with European food," he says. "As for the Shiraz, you would have to be adventurous to consume it with French food; it fits best with heavy meats such as game dishes."