Gil's Blog: Hong Kong Looks Outside of Bordeaux

February 10th, 2012

So I found myself again finishing work at 2:00 a.m. in the morning, having really strong guilty feelings about not having blogged for James’ site for more than two months (alright, give me a little discount for the holiday season). But still, pretty bad if you consider how many times I ran into people who went, “What happened?” and “We were just getting used to seeing you on that site.” Etc.…you get the picture. Then I read Thomas’ blog about the state of the Bordeaux market in Hong Kong, and Marie weighed in with news from our mutual home country of Denmark (and that is right after I saw her there last month), so I was really starting to bum out.

Not to worry, the wine world still goes on without me blogging, but I feel a great sense of duty and responsibility to James, as he was so gracious to offer the spot, and since I have something to say about a topic close to his heart, it was time to weigh in again.

One of the hottest new wine bar and retail concepts opened its doors in Hong Kong just before the Christmas break, and despite the awesome technology they employ at this place called Amo Eno, it is the selection of wines there that really draw rave reviews from visitors and buyers alike. It’s a sort of design temple to everything wine, and the brainchild of former Aureole Las Vegas Wine Director Andrew Bradbury and his wife Brook. Yeah, this is the guy who had tablet computer wine lists 10 years before the iPad came out, way back in 2000 when Aureole opened and the wine angels would fetch bottles from their glass wine tower.

Fast forward to 2012 and here’s the coolest place, which now boasts the second biggest selection of wine in Hong Kong, both on and off premise, after Robuchon. Amo Eno is located in the IFC Mall on the third level next to super fashion mammoth store Lane Crawford, and – this is the part where James will break down crying – they have a fantastic selection of old Italian gems, Burgundy and California, sourced from some of the greatest Old World cellars at prices that have the tongues a-waggin’ in HK, and it’s becoming the biggest buzz in town faster than this blog is online. I mean, people can go in and drink 1955 Conterno Barolo for way below market per bottle, or you can have Screaming Eagle by the glass!

That in itself is kinda cool, but it’s exactly what is happening to the fast-maturing market that Hong Kong, in reality, is – the fact that there’s so much excitement about old Italian gems and Burgundy in a wine bar. Before, you could open a place and serve nothing but Bordeaux and you were assured a good degree of success. But now, the increasingly sophisticated wine-drinking population in Hong Kong and China are demanding other things, and older Italy is definitely right up there with Burgundy and California when it comes to great alternatives.

It has all happened a lot faster than what we all predicted, but with the bursting of the highend Bordeaux bubble (mostly Lafite)  comes a new horizon, and this is great news, not just for the market and its diversification, but also for the future of a number of great wine makers who were more or less left by the wayside in the aftermath of the severe market contraction that happened in the United States. I know we will see much more of them in Hong Kong, and the consumers there are going to be better educated than ever about all the possibilities that exist outside of the world of Bordeaux.

Gil Lempert-Schwarz is a global wine consultant based in Las Vegas and Hong Kong.