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Hugel: ‘Alsace wines belong in Asia’
Rounding off a four-week tour of Asia to launch the new single vineyard Schoelhammer Riesling from the 2007 vintage, Etienne Hugel spoke to db about the unstoppable rise of his wines in Hong Kong.
At a recent vertical tasting of three generations of Hugel & Fils’ Rieslings, including 1953 which was Etienne’s father’s, 1983 which was Etienne’s first and 2009 his son’s Jean Frédéric’s, Etienne commented on the “evolution” that his wine has experienced in Hong Kong, since it was introduced 65 years ago.
“I remember vividly, even 25 years ago when I first arrived that on every table there would be a bottle of Cognac and some ice cubes and nothing else. No wine. Now, you walk into a restaurant and every table is occupied with people drinking wine at lunch, dinner. That was unthinkable before. The days of Hong Kongers putting Sprite into their tannic Bordeaux have gone.”
Hugel’s wines in Asia are growing 30 per cent year on year though Japan is still the number one market for Hugel, taking more than half of the wines exported to the Asia Pacific. Hong Kong has the lion’s share however, and Etienne puts this down to the rapidly developing hotel and restaurant scene, especially among the venerable institutions such as the Shangri-La, Mandarin Oriental and Conrad.
“Nowhere else are the hotels and restaurants putting Chinese food as a priority on their menus and pairing Alsace wines with this new high end Cantonese cuisine. The disparity between red and white wines is disappearing in Hong Kong and people are no longer biased against white wine, even though they still associate the colour white with death – I just tell them it’s ‘golden wine!’”
Despite Alsace wines being a small but growing market in Hong Kong, Etienne is confident on the future of aromatics in the region.
“This is the place where it’s happening. Some Alsace wine growers back home are jealous of our success in Asia but yet, they do not move away. This is the time to visit; there is room for more people to travel here and spread the joy!”