en asia

Two wine adventurers have been making grape-pip stops at as many Cape wineries as possible in recent days - their mission to make friends with local vintners and sweet talk them into handing over some of their best bottlings for an international auction to raise funds to combat hunger. They already passed to India and are going to China this week.

Cheerfully going 'Around the world in 80 vineyards', as they say, Nicolas Beausset and Géraldine Reinhold Von Essen are travelling through five continents, 15 countries – hopefully visiting at least those 80 wineries. The idea is to collect the maximum number of bottles from the befriended wineries for an auction in Spain, their base. Money raised will go to the Action Against Hunger charity.

Their enterprising journey is a continuation of the Vignes Sans Frontières project which began in France in 2004 and was repeated in 2005.

Nicolas Beausset (in the picture with Edmund Terblanche of La Motte) is the sales manager of Dharma Wines and El Petit Celler, a wine import-export business in Spain. Géraldine Reinhold Von Essen is a production assistant at Chemins du Sud, a tour operator specialising in land excursions around the world.

From South Africa the team will travel to Asia, Australia and New Zealand before crossing the Pacific to go to Chile, Uruguay, Argentina, Bolivia, California and Oregon. Finally they will return to Europe in November, starting with Portugal, going through France, Italy and of course Spain, where the auction will be held in Barcelona.

Logistical services, to ensure the arrival of the wines in Europe, are being provided by JF Hillebrand, an international shipper and substantial server of the wine industry.

So far, the two report a very positive response from Cape wineries, with names such as Anura, Avondale, Beyerskloof, Constantia Uitsig, Delaire, Glen Carlou, Groot Constantia, Kanonkop, Klein Constantia, La Motte, L'Avenir, Muratie, Stark-Condé, Steenberg, Thelema and Vergelegen having promised from one to twelve bottles of wine for the auction. They except to have plenty more at the end of the summer harvest journey.

From Thailand they informed that usually think of its beautiful beaches, its historic temples, spicy cuisine and friendly, smiling people... But for more than 10 years now, investors and passionate professionals have been producing the first Thai wine!

They passed by Moonsoon Valley and Siam Winery. As the name indicates, this estate is located in the Gulf of Siam (Siam being the ancient name for Thailand) at about 50 km southeast of Bangkok. We were very well attended by a... French winemaker!

Since the end of the 90's, Laurent Metge Toppin, owner and winemaker of Beaujolais, has been looking after the ¡Moonsoon wines.¡ Enthusiastic from the begining, Laurent found that he could make good wines that are appropriate suited for the tastes of Asian gastronomy. He adds: ¡It is completely foolish to drink a grand cru from Bordeaux with Thai food!¡

To achieve this goal, he makes wines low in acidity and with a high degree of alcohol. Investment is not a problem and the owner (a main shareholder in Red Bull) exerts great effort to provide the winery with the best technology available.

They tasted the wines and then with a typical Thai lunch.

The partners of this journey are: JF Hillebrand, Koala Internacional, Dharma Wines, winetourisminfrance.com , Oeneo Bouchage, Andes Wines Communications, et Chemins du Sud.