Every article I’ve found on this winery starts with a headline that says something like, “Wine from Thailand? Has the World Gone Mad?!” Which, now that I think about it, is pretty much how all my blog entries start. It is a little shocking, Thailand isn’t a place we associate with fine wine. However, it’s pretty well established that grapes can be grown, and wine produced, almost anywhere, except Antarctica (for now…). So, I don’t think it’s the land, but the culture we’re having a hard time associating with wine. Which leads us to the question, why did Thailand, a country with no wine culture, suddenly decide to start making wine?
The answer lies with Thai billionaire businessman Chalerm Yoovidhya, the heir to the Red Bull fortune. According to the Monsoon Valley website, after studying abroad Yoovidhya not only wanted to create a wine culture in Thailand, but to defy the conventional wisdom that great wines could only be produced within latitudes of 30-50°. Planting vineyards at the 13th parallel North in his native country of Thailand required Yoovidhya to master not only tropical viticulture, but tropical monsoon viticulture. The vineyard was planted in the Hua Hun district of the Petchburi province in 2003, on the site of a former Asian elephant corral. This white blend is made from Malaga Blanc and Colombard.
This is actually the second time I’ve stumbled across this wine. I found it once several months before I had even considered starting a blog. Later I cursed myself for not taking photos of the bottle, because I didn’t know when I’d ever come across another. To my surprise, I found a second bottle at the same shop, I was certain somebody else would have picked it up, but I should have known better.
So, since I tried it twice, I have two completely different tasting notes for the same vintage in Vivino. The wine is between light and medium-bodied, with that honeyed fruit flavor I always want to associate with tropical fruit. There’s enough acid here to make the wine food friendly. Overall, I would say it was an enjoyable and balanced wine, though one I suspect was past its prime in both instances I’ve been exposed to it.
I’m pretty sure this is the only tropical climate wine I’ve ever tried, certainly the only one coming from a monsoon climate. It’s also the only wine I’ve tried from Thailand and my first exposure to these grapes. That’s a lot of firsts in one bottle. Reading up on the wine brought to light the difficulties in producing wines in a region that only has two seasons, rainy and dry. Also, I read a lot about climate classification systems while researching this and was surprised to see widely used climate classification models rejected in favor of those which are only applicable to more specific localized regions.
In retrospect, I shouldn’t have been surprised, one of the classic conflicts I’ve noticed within the wine world is maintaining regional identity vs. broad appeal. It’s exactly what Yoovidhya is trying to do with Monsoon Valley, to make a wine that celebrates Thailand, but speaks to an audience beyond his home country. Wines like this have to compete with centuries of history and culture from Europe, as well as the more recently established New World regions. With climate change impacting how and where wine is produced, I sometimes wonder if producers like this will be given an edge in the global market or if the costs associated with adapting to a climate shift will be too much to bear.
We can’t know what the future will bring, which makes exploring wines like this all the more important to me. There’s won’t always be a second bottle waiting for you back at the store.