The Shay Rebellion | Christopher Shay

Sometimes a Grape Notion

by Christopher Shay

Three years ago, Lysanne Tusar walked into a sea of wine. Her new company, the 8th Estate Winery, had purchased 50 tons of premium flash-frozen grapes from Washington’s Columbia River valley to make the first-ever vintage produced in Hong Kong. But while the grapes were thawing over night, a seam in one of the crates burst, flooding Ms. Tusar’s third-floor winery with Merlot.

“I’ll never forget the color. They were the most gorgeous grapes,” she says of the dark-purple pool she stepped into that morning.

After more than 48 hours of cleanup, it turned out only about a quarter-ton of wine was lost. But Ms. Tusar kept worrying: “Every morning I came in holding my breath wondering what apocalyptic scene I would step into.”

Turns out, it was just a fluke start for Hong Kong’s only winery, named after the lucky Chinese number. Since December 2008, the winery has sold more than 25,000 bottles from its first two vintages. Its latest vintage–39,000 bottles of wine made from Australian grapes—will be released in February.

The fact that 8th Estate wine is produced in Hong Kong gives the winery an advantage over imported labels, Ms. Tusar, 30 years old, says. The company imports frozen grapes from around the world and turns them into wine in an industrial building in Ap Lei Chau. Wine is easily damaged by temperature changes, Ms. Tusar says, but frozen grapes can withstand transport. Most winemakers add sulfites as a preservative, she says, but 8th Estate doesn’t. “We don’t export our wines outside of Hong Kong and that’s why our product is not overly preserved,” she says. She claims this makes the wines more flavorful.

The five-person winery isn’t yet making a profit, but Ms. Tusar, the founder and chief marketing officer, says she wasn’t expecting one this early into her business plan. She says having a “Product of Hong Kong” label helps differentiate her wines in a saturated market, but she says it can’t be a gimmick—she needs to prove that her label can make consistently good wine. She also doesn’t intend to compete with labels like Lafite-Rothschild. At 120 Hong Kong dollars (US$15) to HK$320 a bottle, 8th Estate wines are currently sold at a few local hotels, boutique wine shops and the lifestyle store G.O.D.

“Not everyone can afford tens of thousands of dollars on a bottle of wine,” she says, and even if a person can afford the investment they may want to learn about wine first. “Everyone,” she says, “has to start somewhere.”

Planting a Seed

The idea of starting a winery in a densely populated area far from any vineyard came to Ms. Tusar after a few glasses of wine. The Canadian hosted a dinner party in Vancouver in 2006 with people in the wine business. The conversation steered toward the practice of wineries flash-freezing their grapes and storing them to produce wines at a slightly later date. “Once you take a batch of grapes that’s frozen, as long as it stays frozen, there’s not much that can happen to it,” Ms. Tusar says. “That means you can set up a winery anywhere in the world.”

Over the next few weeks, she couldn’t shake the idea of starting a boutique winery where no one would expect one. A year later, she set up shop in Hong Kong because of its port and its relatively mature wine market. Says Ms. Tusar, “It’s a community that is open to new things, and it’s really evident that Hong Kong is becoming a wine-consumption society.”

Grape Expectations

Ever since Hong Kong dropped its wine tax in 2008, “competition for wine has been fierce,” Ms. Tusar says. The company’s strategy of selecting and importing grapes from around the world guarantees a high quality wine every year, she says. “We don’t have to commit to grapes until harvest time,” she says. “If it’s been a bad year climate-wise, we simply won’t purchase.” In its three years, the 8th Estate has produced three vintages from three continents.

For now, Ms. Tusar is focused on getting her wines into more stores and establishing the label as a reliable brand. But in the long-term, she’s interested in taking this idea of an urban winery elsewhere. “It would be nice to see this grow beyond Hong Kong and take the concept to other markets,” she says.

The Next Wine Trend

Ms. Tusar says it can be hard to pin down wine trends in Hong Kong given the mercurial tastes of the city’s oenophiles.

“There is no average consumer in Hong Kong,” she says. Nonetheless she does foresee see a shift toward white wines. In the past, red wines have been much more popular in Hong Kong, even in hot weather, she says. But she says she’s seen 15% to 25% growth in white wine in the overall Hong Kong market in the past year and expects this to continue with popular New Zealand Sauvignon Blancs leading the way.

“The climate here is really hot, and who wants to drink a really big, oaky red during the summer?”

Plus, she says, white wine pairs well with a lot of Hong Kong cuisine, especially seafood.

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