A vineyard bursting with fruits.

The fascination all started eight years ago when we had our first taste of Thai-made wines at the Four Seasons Hotel in Bangkok. I’ve heard the opinions of a lot of snooty experts about its mediocre quality. Ask them the last time they drunk the stuff and they will probably answer you a year or two years ago. But as a young kid of decades past, I sampled the wines from Napa, Sonoma, and Santa Barbara that deserved to be placed in a brown bag when they were on their learning stages. Having been an office worker later on (on some tight budget), I tolerated the then bottled static creations of Jumilla and Navarra that by now are world-class and competitive. So it became a personal mission to have faith in agricultural know-how and technology-exchange and sampling the vintages every year has been a part of my Thai agenda every time I’m on vacation in Bangkok. The past two years got me and my son Gino raising eyebrows on how well improved the Thai wines are. So it has become an obsession to visit the wineries and drink the vintages in Situ.

Since Khao Yai wines profess to be in a new latitude and break all the rules of an ideal area in the world, we had scheduled it for the 2nd harvest which happens between late February and early March.

The Village Farm Winery – Our first stop was the Village Farm Winery also known as Wang Nam Keow on the east side of the Khao Yai National Park. This was the lodging facility and where they make the wines from the grapes harvested from the higher altitude vineyards. The flagship wine label of this winery is called Chateau des Brumes and is obviously very “old world” in methods and techniques with its main crop of Shiraz, Chenin Blanc, and some Cabernet Sauvignon that thrives on the red clay soil called Terra Rossa. We were greeted by the owner, Viravat Cholvanich, an industrialist who is quite a fascinating man with his romantic and esoteric concepts that are seen in the rustic and warm atmosphere created by his cottage clusters on the hillside. I was booked on a room with a bathtub made of wood and my bed had a front view of the mountain side with a lower floor that had a natural-looking infinity pool. We were first greeted with a bottle of unfiltered and unfermented grape juice made from a blend of 50% Shiraz and 50% Black Queen grapes. This sweet dark liquid was a good prelude to our first wine pairing at lunch time.  The rather sunny weather was perfect for a Ma Cherie 2009, a Syrah Rose with 12.5% alcohol. It was a genuine rose that was “bled from the skins” or got its tint from the  juice it had with the grape skins rather than blend of white and red wine together. It was very ‘French’ in style, rather round with a peppery fragrance at the edge. There were shades of custard and flowers and had a juicy, vibrant fruit finish. I enjoyed this better than an Austere Village Cellar 2007 Chenin Blanc which was lightly creamy but had a dry palate with hints of custard. Oak Chips were used on this short process. The Chenin did particularly well with a croustade of melted cheese and garlic. The Rose however worked wonderfully well even as a palate quencher, as some native dishes were served such as a Fiery Som Tam or Papaya Salad served with Sticky Rice and Grilled Chicken with fish sauce and chilies. Highlights of the lunch were the Smoked Ribs that had a delicate sweetness and were tender enough for the cartilage to be eaten; morsels of fried skin-on salmon with fresh green peppercorns served with sweet chili sauce; and a dish of smoked pulled pork that went so well with the wine and brought out sweet notes from the rose.

After lunch, we attended an interesting and rather humorous wine lecture from Pairach Intaput, one of Thailands foremost wine educators and sommeliers. He even had some interesting quips on people’s personalities on how they held their wine glasses. During this session, we tasted the Village Shiraz 2007 considered as its jump off wine. It was lightly tannic with light sour cherry notes, a little jammy with hints of cedar and rather flinty. We had compared this to a more sophisticated upper line Chateau des Brumes 2007 which is aged 7 months in French Oak and 2 years in the bottle. The wine was fermented for 12 days with an additional 6 weeks of malolactic fermentation to soften it. This medium bodied wine had light pepper, red berries, and strawberry aromas with a Hawthorne finish and is a blend of 85% Shiraz and 15% Cabernet.

This recent vintage had more character, as explained by our vineyard owner, saying that the vines were old enough and the roots had already reached the slate level which provided more stress and complexity on the flavor of the grapes.

By afternoon, we took a trip higher up the mountains to the main vineyards where Kun Virawat opened this area for the first time to a group of people. The vineyard was bursting with fruits and was set on a beautiful 7 to 10 degree slope with his characteristic signature wooden structure that had a huge terrace. The sun was still up and we had more rose and light reds complemented by a romantic violin trio propped on a vintage pick up truck. And as the full moon came out, we had dinner paired with the winery’s upper labels. Mr. Virawat’s philosophy was clearly seen in his rustic wine styles and methods coupled with the experience his visitors had when they were hosted by the winery. Memorable vintages served on this dinner were the Chateau des Brumes Prestige 2004, a 70% Shiraz 30% Cabernet blend that was spicy, with characters of Hawthorne, tamarind, and a dried fruit finish. I liked the Prestige 2005 that had a more masculine, black olive, leather and lightly barnyard character. Both reds, although still medium bodied, were great partners to the pasta and green peppercorns sauced steak. Before dessert, we donned our headgear with flashlights, got our harvest boxes and shears and joined the pickers in the night harvest. Grapes harvested in the evening were ensured to be fresher and in better condition when they were pressed. What was surprising was, by the time we got back to the winery, a portion of the grapes were loaded on vats and all the ladies in our group were lent plaid skirts and joined the garland crowned vineyard damsels in foot, crushing the grapes to the tunes of the music trio at midnight. (I had fun lifting them into the vats feeling like Keanu Reeves for a second…).

We woke up the next day to a big breakfast with some fresh mushrooms floating on a porridge and some whole wheat toast paired off with homemade dark shiraz jam that wore off all that vino we had during the night.

Overall, looking at the classic methods employed by this vineyard and at the yearly improvements that have been making with the wines, I expect big and heavy wines made by Chateau des Brumes within the next five years. Mr. Virawat had told us that this 2010 would be a vintage to watch.

PB Valley Khao Yai Winery – This winery, managed by the same owner of Singha beer has a different philosophy from our first step, putting production, merchandising, and technology at the forefront. As one enters the winery, well-packaged line of vineyard products, aside from wines are immediately offered to visitors not to mention a huge restaurant serving local and western food with a rustic wood burning oven. We were seated at a dining area fronting a creek and a slope with vines for our view.

We first sampled the PB Valley 2008 Rose, an orange copper colored wine of a blended rose of Colombard and Shiraz with a fresh lychee and longan fruits. It was a good partner with food being dry a little warmer in style than Village Winery’s pure rose. This rose was meaty and had a curious champignon finish.

Another wine that we tasted was the Sawasdee Chenin Blanc – a crystal clear white wine with a pleasant greenish tint. It reminded me of fresh unripe pears and palm sugar aromas. This 2008 liquid had a tangy acidity and lots of forward fresh fruit. No oaking had been done on this wine.

Mr. Joolpeera Saitrakul, better known as just A, was kind enough to tour us around the winery. The spic and span facility was impressive and was geared for huge and multiple variants production. I had learned that A was trained in New Zealand and nudged him to sample an experiment or two to which he kindly obliged us with a Muscat variant called Poloskia. This came straight and still unclarified. The wine was a generous burst of tart apples, pears, and melons with a delicious salivating acidity. It was perky and had fragrant jasmine and sampaguita aromas.

After the tour, we sat down and dug into lunch quaffing more Rose and Chenin Blanc. I stepped outside the shop and tried the award-winning Tempranillo but decided to buy the roses and chenins for instant gratification.

Lunch served were crispy pork knuckles (pata) Thai style with Nam Prik, Nam Chim Cheow (Tamarind, fish sauce and roasted chili dip) with grilled beef, spicy ham, fried fish with red curry, chicken with wild Eggplant in Yellow Curry, and Roasted Shellfish essence with Kaffir. For dessert, a refreshing Shiraz Sorbet was served to beat the grape ripening sun.

Gran Monte Asoke Valley – This winery is a business owned by the Lohitnavy family who were formerly contract grape growers for their neighbor PB. Eventually they decided to bottle and create their own winery with their daughter Nikki, graduating as Viticulturist and Thailand’s first Oenologist in Australia. The father Visooth Lohitnary who set up this boutique operation, came up with first vintages and has been winning several awards for their wines in the past two years. The vineyard is operated with smart vineyard technology incorporating microclimate monitoring systems which go into a historical database.

Nikki, the winemaker, has worked in prestigious wineries such as Brown Brothers and Wolf Blass and the Aussie Shiraz style and her expertise was evident in her works.  We were able to sample fresh from the tank of 2010 Chemin, still cloudy but had the forming complexities of guayabano, pomelo rind, and tropical fruit. A barrel sample of 2010 Shiraz was bursting with black fruits, mocha, and black pepper. It was inky and robust.

By the time we had gone back to the vineyard, it was dinner and we polished off bottles paired with roast pork and grilled lamb. Memorable (but not for sale since we finished it all) was a Sakuna (named after Visooth’s wife) Rose 2009, that had custard, floral, and pomelo flavors. I could term this easy drinking rose with a tinge of sweetness to be a big pink wine. It had a candied tomato and a musky character that went well with the appetizers. Much can also be said about the Sole Chenin Blanc 2009 which expresses grapes with great solar exposure resulting in minerally wine with a tinge of acidity, a little musky with a calamansi and guava finish and hints of lanzones but pale straw in color.

The main courses worked well with a Primavera Shiraz that stood a year in the barrel with black and red cherry flavors. This medium dry, red was spicy, meaty, with a bright light maraschino color.

Overall, our visits to the vineyards were an eye-opening experience to the newbies, to our skeptical wine aficionado companions and to us observers of how Thai wine has been moving in the past years.

One thing is for sure, I’m going back next year and I’ll be a few pounds lighter, so I can gain it back there…

For more info on next year’s harvest, you can email me at chefgenegonzalez@yahoo.com.