TEA AND CHARDONNAY

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What goes with soy sauce? Tim Atkin, the Wine-List Inspector, calls on the Ming Court in Hong Kong ...

From INTELLIGENT LIFE Magazine, Spring 2010

It’s a boom time for wine in Hong Kong. Since the government abolished the tax on this most civilised of alcoholic beverages two years ago, the region has become the centre of the Asian fine-wine market. The duty-free shops at the airport are full of classed-growth clarets, auction houses are reporting eyebrow-raising profits and even hole-in-the-wall off-licences in Kowloon offer five vintages of Château Lafite.

Has wine filtered down into the densely populated mainstream of Hong Kong life? Er, not exactly. Wealthy collectors and Westerners may be drinking more wine than ever, but tea and beer are much more popular with the locals. It’s no coincidence that most of the best Chinese restaurant wine lists are to be found in hotels such as Shangri La (Summer Palace), the Conrad (Golden Leaf), Grand Hyatt (One Harbour Road), Langham Place (Ming Court) and the Four Seasons (Lung King Heen). How to choose between them? I picked Langham Place because it’s the only one in Kowloon, which always feels more authentically Chinese to me.

Like the five-star hotel around it, Ming Court is stylishly decorated, even if it can’t match the views of some of its competitors. It also serves some of the best Cantonese food in Hong Kong. Chef Tsang Chiu King has deservedly notched up two Michelin stars since the restaurant opened in 2004. Among those in the know, Ming Court’s wine list is respected, too, although the punters who use it are in a minority. The sommelier, Ben Ho, told me that 30% of them drink wine; but when we had lunch there, we were the only diners with a bottle on the table.

Matching Cantonese food and wine isn’t easy. The traditional solution (at least in the West) is to serve spicy, over-perfumed Alsatian Gewürztraminer, but that seems questionable to me. Cantonese food is light and mellow, with an emphasis on fresh ingredients and occasional flashes of flavour from garlic, ginger, green onion and chilli. Ironically, the wine style that works worst with Cantonese food is tannic red Bordeaux, but its value as a status symbol often outweighs its lack of suitability.

The other tricky thing with Cantonese food is the variety of flavours on offer. Our meal zig-zagged from dim sum, to a sweetcorn broth with crabmeat, to braised pea sprouts with conpoy, to fried rice with diced sea cucumber, yunnan ham and shrimp, to stir-fried prawns with XO sauce, and back to fried rice with barbecued pork and egg whites. No single wine could cope with such diversity.

Ben Ho chose two wines to go with our food: an oaky, broad, full-flavoured southern French Chardonnay (2008 Paul Mas Cha Cha Cha, Vin de Pays d’Oc, HK$348, £29) and, more surprisingly perhaps, a ripe, spicy, brambly, sweetly oaked Aussie Shiraz (2005 Hahn Yanyarrie Shiraz, HK$438). Possibly as a Chinese safety-net we were served copious amounts of Pu-ehr tea, too, but Ho needn’t have bothered. Both wines worked well with the food.

A bottle a head is a lot of wine, mind you. Ming Court doesn’t serve anything by the glass, although (on request) you can order a smaller measure from Portal, the bar on the floor below—where the list is shorter but more informative. As well as offering 42 wines by the glass, it contains useful notes on each. Its restaurant sibling should do the same thing. Having said that, I like the list at Ming Court. It’s still fairly short (Ho says it will be increased to 400 bins later this year) but it’s reasonably priced, well set-out and generally focuses on varieties that work with chef Tsang’s food, such as Sauvignon Blanc, Riesling, Chardonnay, Pinot Gris, Pinot Noir and Shiraz. The spread of countries is cosmopolitan, too, including France, Spain, Italy, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Chile and America. The only major omission is Austria.

There are a few too many red Bordeaux (16) on the list for my liking, but this is China, after all. I suspect that expense-account diners would lose face if they ordered, say, a 2006 Dromana Estate Pinot Noir, Mornington Peninsula (HK$418) rather than a 2002 Château Beychevelle, St Julien (HK$1,298). Hong Kong may be the Asian hub of the fine-wine world, but it still has some way to go.

IN THE BIN

Number of wines: 137

By the glass: 42 (from Portal downstairs)

Under HK$360: 30

Over HK$1,200: 30

Best value: 2008 Viña Errázuriz Chardonnay, Casablanca Valley (HK$298)

Worst value: 2003 Ramey Jericho Canyon Vineyard Cabernet (HK$1,978)
Gluggability: 3 out of 5 stars

Expense account adjuster*: 2 out of 5 stars

Sauvignon Blanc index**: 2.71