Cellar.Asia is pleased to introduce a brand-new wine rating system created by Asian sommeliers for Asian consumers.
With the Asian wine industry currently on a meteoric rise – both in terms of production and consumption – there is a clear need for wine ratings that will both reflect Asian cultural tastes and better meet the needs of Asian consumers. Luckily, the wait for such a rating is finally over, and you’ll now have the expertise of a panel of Asian sommeliers behind you for all of your future wine purchases.
This new panel will be uniquely dedicated to providing consumers in these regions with wine reviews that will match their tastes, with the goal of becoming a trusted resource guiding Asian consumers while they make selections from a variety of global wines.
The Asian Sommeliers will provide reviews for many popular wines from the Old World and New World, but will also give a voice to products from Asian wineries and allow them to enjoy the coverage they deserve, in reaching the larger Asian wine community.
A solid foundation has already been laid for the work of The Asian Sommeliers, with the assembly of a panel of expert sommeliers from throughout the Asia-Pacific region. This panel includes Mr. Shigheru Ayashi from Japan, one of the world’s most widely respected sommeliers and a well-known author, Mr. Roger Chow from China, an extraordinary wine expert, educator, and consultant, Mr. Isao Miyajima from Japan, a widely respected journalist and wine critic, and Young-Jin You from South Korea, head sommelier of the Vista Walkerhill Hotel in Seoul and participant in numerous wine competitions. The other members of our panel represent Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Taiwan, making this a truly representative assembly of some of the most prestigious wine experts in the Asia-Pacific region.
Are you an Asian Sommelier? Join our panel!
If you are a certified sommelier from the Asia-Pacific region, help us promote the region’s unique tastes and let your voice be heard! We welcome applications from certified sommeliers, wishing to participate in the development and promotion of this new and unique panel. Enter your information here and we will be in touch to discuss how we can work together.
For more information on this exciting new reference, and to meet the esteemed members of our sommeliers panel, check out the website sommeliers.asia. And stay tuned for more news from the Cellar.Asia community as this new rating panel gets up to speed in the coming weeks and months! Don’t forget to connect with Cellar & Friends (@cellarnfriends) on your favorite social media platform to make sure you don’t miss a thing!
One can only welcome this, another step towards an independent success story of Asian wine and real emancipation in the world market.
Hopefully, this clever chance will not be wasted by simply taking over the often too high and euphoric ratings of the typical market catalysts among paid tasters and simply adjusting the Asian wines with equally high points following.
A sad example of this is the Bordeaux Primeur campaign 2019, in which the retailers in Europe and especially in Germany have completely lost the thread and, after difficult business years, are now throwing themselves around for points in the hunt for customers. There are now wines for 15,- or 19,- or 23,- Euro with 99 to 100+ points in the aggressive sales campaign. Desperately fighting under every flag.
If Asia with its own wine judgments can free itself from the opinion sovereignty of a few tasters from the old world – who have to make a living from it! – we will experience an established and proud Asian market in only 10 years. And it will no longer need strategic art creations like an Ao Yun – a wine that was only created on the drawing board with the idea of a sales channel and a very specific luxury buyer class: overvalued, overdesigned, over-marketed, overpaid. This will soon make China itself a dozen times better, and probably not only better, but also much more price-worthy. And thus also much more credible.
With best regards from Germany, Berlin
Michael Holzinger