Wine and Asian Food

There was a thread here recently that was discussing matching wines with Asian dishes. The following was lifted from today's Melbourne Age and might be of some interest.

How Louis XIV paved way

Luke Duggleby
August 4, 2007

THE grape first landed on Thai soil in 1685 as a gift for King Narai courtesy of Louis XIV of France.

Alongside these first vines was the finished product, very different to anything they had ever tasted. Ever since, Thai nobility has had a taste for it.

Wine remained the privilege of the nobility, but due to the demand, in 1957 two varieties were brought over to test their suitability in the Thai climate, and a new industry was born.

Laurent Metge-Toppin, a French winemaker, whose help was enlisted to produce a suitable blend that has the hard job of complementing Thailand's famously spicy food, jokingly calls the red he has helped to create Cotes de la Riviere Kwai.

He is the first to admit: "Everything is different, growing wine in Thailand. So you need to adapt." And he adds: "After you have adapted your growing techniques there are the problems of storage and people's perception, in which people's perception is by far the greatest hurdle."

If you are looking for a perfect claret or bordeaux you will not find it here. A perfect wine would not stand a chance against the power of the chilli.

But what you will find is a wine that will accompany even the most fierce Thai dish. Monsoon Valley has a white made from a local malaga blanc grape variety, which with its exotic aromas of lemongrass and watermelon is the perfect complement to green curries or a grilled salmon with mango salsa.

The red, velvety and medium-bodied, is made from a blend, perfected by Mr Metge-Toppin, of pokdom, shiraz and black muscat varieties, and would be best suited to accompanying a duck massamun curry, or a fried pepper-garlic soft-shell crab dish.

And by using the saignee method, local malaga blanc, pokdom and black muscat grapes are macerated and fermented together to produce the rose, which has been paired with such dishes as eggplant salad with shrimp and pork.

Monsoon Valley may not be the next St Emilion, but then again, it does not want to be. This wine is for the spicy palate, and intends to stay that way.