Sarment announces ‘Confidential Wine List’ scheme

Membership-based premium wine merchant Sarment is adding another exclusive privilege to Sarment members in Asia.

Sarment is inviting 30 of the finest restaurants in Hong Kong, Shanghai and Singapore (10 in each), to join an exclusive programme to list a selection of rare and fine wines, named “Confidential Wine List”, that will only be accessible to Sarment members.

Restaurants so far signed up to the scheme include: Arcane, Seasons by Olivier Elzer, Ronin, Epure, Mott 32 and China Tang in Hong Kong; Villa Le Bec, Mercato, Hakkasan and Franck Bistro in Shanghai and Brasserie Gavroche, Cure, Oso, Pollen and The Tippling Club in Singapore.

The wines will be sourced directly from the cellars of some of the world’s top wineries, whether they be exclusive vintages or special limited production bottlings that are not released anywhere in the world. Members can expect a very exciting selection from Burgundy where Sarment has an office and a team in Beaune to source the best and most exclusive wines for the lists.

Each restaurant will carry a “Confidential Wine List” of 10 wines, making  a total of 300 unique wines for these 30 restaurants.

Each Confidential Wine List will be tailor-made according to the concept, style of cuisine of the participating restaurant, ensuring that none of these exclusive wines is appearing at more than one restaurant. Given the limited bottles available for each wine, each list will be updated from time to time. To make it more exclusive, these wines are not available for ordering from Sarment outside of these restaurants. The Confidential Wine List is expected to start featuring in participating restaurants from October 2015.

Speaking to dbHK about how the restaurants are selected, Connor McClay, online trade sales manager, emphasised that Sarment’s philosophy in choosing restaurant and hotel partners was not about following the Michelin guides, rather it was about partnering with top restaurants and top hotels where their wines are best positioned to complement the fine dining experience. McClay is working hard at fine-tuning Sarment’s distribution channels so that Sarment will focus exclusively on the on-trade and members, to make their wines even more exclusive.

Newly appointed marketing manager, Ali Nicol, echoed the Sarment team’s excitement about their regional growth plans, which already saw the recent opening of an office in Kuala Lumpur, with more openings expected for the region, including Thailand, Myanmar and more cities in Mainland China.

“Sarment offers a unique and exclusive service to its clients, focusing on quality, exclusivity and value,” he said. “Sarment is an exclusive wine community and we believe in providing a service that enhances the lifestyle choices of our members.”

Kimberley Drake, newly appointed head of wine, Hong Kong, at Sarment, commented: “We are extremely excited to be able to offer our members exclusive access to some of the greatest wines in the world from some of the very best vintages.  We want to offer our members wines that no one else can offer and working with our partners around the world, incorporating this into our wine community will allow for wine experiences thus far unavailable to the majority of wine lovers world-wide.  This is something exclusive to Sarment and Sarment members and we are pioneering something that has, up until now not been seen anywhere else in the world.”

Sarment currently offers two levels of membership in Asia with different ranges of benefits: “Nouveau” and “Luxe”.

Nouveau is a one-year membership based on a one-time purchase of HK$2,600/RMB 2,100/SG$450 (approx. GBP£215), and Luxe is a lifetime membership based on a one-time membership fee of HK$8,700/RMB7,000/SG$1,500 (approx. GBP£725). Sarment has sales offices in Geneva, Hong Kong, Beijing, Shanghai, Chengdu, Suzhou, Singapore and Kuala Lumpur.