Wine for Asia Exhibition
I've always fancied myself as a bit of an optimist. You know the
old joke about the difference between an optimist and a pessimist?
It goes something like this: a pessimist is a kid that gets a room
full of fabulous toys for their birthday. Some time later the child
is found sitting, arms crossed, moping amidst the untouched toys,
and declares, "If I play with these toys they're just going get all
dirty and broken and there's nothing fun in here anyway."
An optimist is someone who gets a room full of manure for their
birthday. Some time later the child is found happily shovelling
amidst the dung heap. When asked why, the kid replies, "With all
this crap around, there has got to be a pony in here somewhere!"
These were the precise words that popped into my head when I arrived
at Wine for Asia: Asia's Most Comprehensive International Wine
Exhibition: a dim main hall nearly vacant apart but for the jaded
exhibitors and a scattering of listless guests. A quick stroll
through the main pavilions revealed no obvious pony, just a few
large brand owners, a handful of local importers wanting to showcase
and some obscure winery names, in some cases countries, seeking
representation in Singapore. Not wanting to chalk this one up a
wasted day, I resolved to get out my shovel and start digging.
With the plethora of local and international wine exhibitions /
trade fairs on offer these days and more springing up each year, it
begs the question, How did the wine trade ever function without
these cheesy prefabricated halls of cardboard-stand wine bottles and
increasingly Las Vegas styled national pavilions to lure punters?
The answer is kind of obvious. With a few notable exceptions in
history such as the Roman habit of BYO for campaigns or Champagne
being sipped by the Tsars of Russia and of course the long-standing
British penchants for Bordeaux and Port, in the past wines were
primarily consumed in close proximity to where they were made.
There are still examples of this business model working today. I've
come across many a small winery that relies almost exclusively on
cellar door / direct shipping sales both in very traditional areas
of production such as the Rheingau or Burgundy or even brand new
boutique wineries in New World regions such as Margaret River or
Napa. Yet in areas where production has come to far exceed local
demand, which is currently the case for most of the wine-producing
world, finding new markets is essential for the survival of many
wineries. Cue The International Wine Trade Fair and the globalising
wine industry has never looked back.
Wine for Asia has an impressive website and made all the right
noises. 2008 was its sixth instalment, so by now it should be
finding its feet and place amongst the other Asian based trade
fairs. But the benchmark for today's international wine industry
gatherings is high. I'm thinking specifically of destination events
such as Vinexpo, held annually, alternating venues between Hong Kong
and Bordeaux every other year. I suppose what makes this popular
trade-networking venue such a success is the calibre and sheer
volumes of a) exhibitors and b) visitors. Without these two things
you haven't got an exhibition and of course one attracts the other,
so organising a trade fair must be a bit of a Catch 22. As a
guideline, Vinexpo Asia-Pacific held earlier this year attracted 692
exhibitors and nearly 9000 visitors. Then there were the
exhibition's offering of 33 scheduled seminars, tastings and
lectures that added value for visitors and provided another platform
from which suppliers could shine.
This year Wine for Asia housed only about 250 stands, down
significantly from the 441 exhibitors and co-exhibitors they hosted
last year. The fair ran over three days in mid-October with the
first two days set-aside for trade and free of charge to
pre-registered visitors working in the wine / hospitality trade.
The third day was for consumers with a nominal fee of SG$30 per
attendee, though I heard that the visitor attendance on this day was
equally as dire as the previous two trade days. Apart from the
stands there were a few business forums / seminars and tutored wine
classes that required pre-registration to attend, though truly
interesting ones were few in number and the best tastings (the only
ones that would have been of interest to me) were "by invitation
only".
When I arrived on the Friday afternoon at 11.30 a.m., organisers
were trying to encourage people to attend a sparsely populated
Lanson Champagne tasting at the main stage. I watched from the
sidelines whilst tasting other wines. Mr. Anton Hobbs, Lanson's
export director, gave a good show though it was clear that the
information was pitched at consumer level rather than trade,
providing mainly general marketing spin and a tasting across its
range of current releases.
The area of Wine for Asia that I found most appealing was a
collection of tables that housed some of the winning wines from the
exhibition's "Wine Style Asia Award 2008" competition. This offered
the opportunity to taste through a broad range of selected, good
quality wines that are currently being imported into Singapore.
Tasting notes on some of my favourite picks are posted below with
details of the importers, if available.
A little later I found myself at the "Goy-gol Wine Plant" stand
hosting wines from the Azerbaijan Republic. Okay, I confess that I
had no idea that Azerbaijan made wine and mostly what they're making
out of grapes isn't, but there were some interesting efforts to
sample. I felt a kindred spirit thing with the guys from Azerbaijan
?here too were a couple of die-hard optimists making a real go of
this event. They passionately described to me how in 1819 German
settlers established the Helenendorf colony near ancient Gandja and
later built Azerbaijan's first winery that began producing wine in
1860. The bulk of Goy-gol Wine Plant's production is vodka though
the production of wines from indigenous grapes is of growing
importance to the company. I tasted through the range of five wines
and found one of the reds made from the local Madrasa grape to be
palatable (see TN below).
My two cents on Wine for Asia? Attending these trade fairs is not
cheap when you consider the travel and time costs and not forgetting
substantial cost of the stand and samples for the exhibitors.
Vinexpo Asia-Pacific in Hong Kong is centrally located, established
and very well managed. Once every two years at this large-scale
destination venue seems plenty of opportunity for international
suppliers and Asian buyers or anyone with Asian wine business
interests to hook-up. I'm not saying that Wine for Asia should be
scrapped altogether but I do think it should perhaps focus its
marketing and emphasis more on what would be of most benefit to
increasing wine sales and consumption figures in SE Asia. For
example the organisers may consider developing this exhibition
solely as an opportunity to interest and educate consumers. I've
noticed that there are very few if any really good, large-scale wine
consumer events in Asia and the importance of consumer wine exposure
and education in emerging markets such as SE Asia should not be
underestimated.
As I headed for the Wine for Asia doors, four separate men donning
brightly colored blow-up kangaroos under their arms passed me. Bit
odd, I thought, these guys must be taking them home for their kids /
grandkids. Coveting one for my three year old, I made a detour to
the Yellow Tail stand to find a crowd of men clustered around two
Yellow Tail hotties that were handing out branding paraphernalia and
posing for photos. Ah well, there comes a point when even optimists
have to forget the pony make their own fun out of what's in the
room.