Beer lovers get ready to indulge! Beertopia is the Hong Kong’s first ever beer festival featuring over 90 craft beers from around the world.  The festival takes place on 28 April, 2012 at the Western Market in Sheung Wan.

There will guided tasting of beers, live music, beer lectures from local experts and beer games at the event.

How much? 

Tickets are HK$250 to HK$300

Book ticket here

The prized cognac, Martell Cordon Bleu, was the centre of the spotlight in Monaco recently where a gala dinner with a glittering guest list was invited to the Place du Casino in Monte-Carlo to celebrate it’s 100 year anniversary.

Guests including H.S.H. Prince Albert II ; H.S.H. Princesss Charlène, H.R.H. the Princess of Hanover, actress Juliette Binoche, actress Li Bingbing, pianist Zhao Yin Yin, TV star Chen Shu and top model Wang Haizhen; were joined by 250 others for an evening light show, gala dinner and private concert by Imelda May on 22 March to celebrate the centenary since its launch.

Martell Cordon Bleu was officially launched in 1912 at the Hotel du Paris and has since enjoyed prime position at restaurants and bars around the world including carriages of the Orient Express and the flight decks of the Concorde.

Due to Ching Ming Festival holiday tomorrow we’re kicking off early for the Easter Holiday.

We know you will all drink responsibly this holiday – we’ll be tasting, pairing and dining but (hope to be) back in one-piece for Tuesday, April 10.

Decanter magazine has announced that it will host its first Asia Wine Awards this year. The new wine awards will be held in September 2012 and will award and recommend wines based on Asian tastes.

Judged by some of Asia´s most prominent wine experts, the panel will include Jeannie Cho Lee MW, the first Asian Master of Wine, and Steven Spurrier, chair of Decanter World Wine Awards. As with the other Decanter Wine Awards, the tasting will be blind and organized into regional groups and different price brackets.

The announcement of these new awards marks the continued growth and prominence of the Asian wine market. This will be the second large wine competition in Asia, joining the Cathay Pacific Hong Kong International Wine & Spirit Competition which was first held in 2010.

Officially being launched at the end of May at Vinexpo Asia-Pacific in Hong Kong, entries to the Decanter competition will open on 29th May 2012 for the tasting in September.

For more information, go to Decanter.com

A survey commissioned by French trade group Vinexpo and International Wine & Spirit Research reveals that Hong Konger consume the largest amount of wine in the region. This does not come as a surprise with the amount of incentive and support the government is putting into making Hong Kong the wine hub of Asia and gateway into China.

Dominique Heriard Dubreuil, chief executive of Vinexpo Asia-Pacific presented the research result to invited guests and media at the Four Seasons last week showed that in 2010, a Hong Konger consumed 4.7 liters of wine, the equivalent of 6.3 bottles per year. This represents an increase of 200% from 2006 to 2010. In comparison, China consumes 1.1 liters of wine per capita during the same period.

However, considering how young the China market is and the tremedous growth is has shown in such a short period of time, China with a population of 1.3 billion people, the research projection is expecting China to become the second largest market of wine in the world in 2015.  It is currently the sixth-largest consumers by country, just behind the United Kingdom.

To read more on Vinexpo research result, go to WSJ.com

Last week at the Grand Hyatt in Hong Kong and handful of teams from local Universities competed at the 11th annual French Bordeaux tasting competition – the ‘Left Bank Bordeaux Cup’.

After a grueling session of tasting and analyzing wines, the Hong Kong City team won and will go onto France in June to compete at the finals.

This year the competition was the biggest yet, with teams invited to participate from all over the world. There was an increase of teams from Hong Kong and China, and the Asian teams showed an impressive level of tasting ability.

Each team of three members and one leader train in Bordeaux wine tasting before the competitions and the finalists will all gather in one of the world’s most legendary chateaus in June: Chateau Lafite Rothschild.

The winners of the final competition will take home 24 bottles of Chateau Lafite Rothschild Premier Grand Cru.

This year’s winner of the Leccio d’Oro prize for best restaurant presenting Montalcino wines was announced as Hong Kong restaurant, Gaia.

This annual award from the Brunello Consortium of Montalcino, Italy, is given to a restaurant and wine shop that stands out from the ordinary for their presentation of Montalcino wines.

The panel of judges chose the Italian restaurant, Gaia Restaurant on Queen’s Road Central, as one of the best Italian restaurants and for their impressive wine list with over 600 labels, including many Montalcino wines.

The restaurant is managed by Naples-born Pino Piano, who has travelled extensively around the world, but settled in Hong Kong to help run this well known Italian restaurant.

This award has previously gone to many notable restaurants around the globe, and the jury this year consisted of the President and Committee of the consortium including wine experts, journalists and writers.

Where?

Gaia Ristorante, 181 Queen’s Road Central.  Tel: 2167 8200

China’s interest and consumption of wine is astronomical.  A research conducted by Vinexpo shows that the speed of this growth in that it took only one year between 2009 and 2010 for wine consumption in China and Hong Kong included to grow by 33.4%. This translated to 156.19 million 9-litre cases consumed in 2011 making it the 5th largest wine consumption market in the world ahead of UK.
 

 The biggest wine consumption market is US,  Italy, France and Germany. Considering how long it took for the biggest wine consumption market to get to the level of where they are today, it is amazing how fast the market for China has grown.

In the 5-year period from 2006 to 2010, Chinese wine consumption including Hong Kong was multiplied by 2.4. The VINEXPO study forecasts a further 54.25% rise between 2011 and 2015. (Vinexpo – 9 January 2012)

Photosource: Vinography.com

French wine and spirits maker Moet Hennessy aims to produce a super-premium red wine at the foot of the Himalayan mountains in southern China.

Moet-Hennessy has signed a deal with VATS, a major wine and spirits dealer in China to develop 30 hectares of vineyards in the mountainous region of Yunnan, at the foot of snow-capped Mount Meili in Deqin. Located at 2,400 metres altitude, the vineyard is expected to be producing main varietals used in Bordeaux red wine blends like Cabernet sauvignon, Merlot and Cabernet franc grapes.

The combination of soil, sunshine and climate make it ideal for the type of grapes to make robust, Bordeaux-style wine that should be ready in three to four years, Moet Hennessy Chief Executive Christophe Navarre said.

This is Moet Hennessy’s third investment in China in five years following its acquisition of Chinese white-spirits brand Wenjun in 2007, and an investment last year to produce a premium sparkling wine in Ningxia. The joint venture will be called Moet Hennessy Shangri-La (Deqin) Winery Co Ltd.

Source: Reuters

Photo: Janis Miglavs, Flikr

It’s been another amazing year and we want to thank all of you for reading us and supporting us as Hong Kong’s #1 English wine and fine dining online magazine!

2012 will be a big year: with new design, new features and lots of more wine, spirits and fine dining coverage! So we’re going to take a break and recharge and come back and strong in January 2012.