The popularity in Italian wines in Hong Kong is steadily growing as the versatility of the wines and the generous acidity in the wine itself make them a great companion to food – not just Italian food, but food overall. So, wanting to grab a long dim sum lunch earlier this week I caught up with friend and fellow Brit Martin Brady to spend 4 hours over lunch and drink wines from Tre Monte – I chose these wines as they make a number of white wines, something I think fares better with Asian food more so than reds.
Meeting up in the Shamrock Hotel’s Chinese
restaurant, Martin, myself and the chaps from Modern Wine Cellar sat down to a typical
dim sum lunch and started about the business of trying to pair three Italian
whites and two reds with a varying number of typical local dishes.
Tre Monte itself is a winery located in Imola and
farms 55 hectares of vines with the winery being run by brothers Vittorio and
David since the retirement of their father Sergio. In the early years, the
driving force behind the winery was Thea, Sergio’s wife who sadly passed away
but whose memory lives on with their top wine called “Thea”.
The winemaking operations,
watched over painstakingly by the experienced and talented Vittorio are
highlighted by a philosophy of minimal intervention. Every step is carried out
with full respect for the integrity of the fruit and the unique character of
each growing year so that Vittorio can ensure that the final wines fully
expresses all of the conditions that gave it birth. This overall philosophy has
resulted in a production that is almost exclusively focused on monovarietal
wines, thanks largely to those efforts lavished everyday on the vineyards. It
is something heard very often from proud and talented Italian wine makers that ‘great
wines are made in the vineyard and not in the cellar’ and this philosophy
reigns true at Tre Monte too.
The food arriving and the wines
uncorked (yeah, it’s a tough life!) it was interesting to see how the different
styles of food paired up with the different styles of wine as the three whites;
the Vigna Rio Trebbiano, the Vigna Rocca Albana Secco and the Salcerella
Sauvignon were what I thought would be the most interesting to play around
with. The reds we had were the Campo di Mezzo Sangiovese Superiore and the
Petrignone Sangiovese Riserva.
The Trebbiano, minerally, crisp
and clean paired very nicely with har gow (shrimp dumplings) and lap cheung
geun (Chinese sausage buns) as the delicate flavours in both dishes were not
overpowered by the wine which itself was subtle and would also do well as just
a standalone drinking wine.
The Albana, the first white wine
to get a recognised DOCG status in the mid 1980’s had a lovely golden colour
and a good medium body to it. This wine paired especially well with doh miu gow
(pea leaf and shrimp dumpling) and also went nicely with the roasted pork that
we ordered.
The Sauvignon was by far the most
interesting and intense of the whites and with its robust aroma and potential
big body we thought it would probably withstand most foods. Its aroma of tomato
leaf was evident and it honestly reminded me of the smell of walking into my grandmother’s
greenhouse when I was a young whipper-snapper.
The wine itself went very well
with the Roasted Pork, but this time we added the side of mustard to the meat
to increase the flavour intensity and see how the Sauvignon would stand up to
it – it did! The sui mai (pork and shrimp dumplings) when draped in the side of
chilli sauce also worked very well with the wine – as did the cheung fun (hard
to describe but steamed glutinous rice roll sounds about right!) with prawn when
drowned in soy sauce. The big wine needed big flavours and the Chinese are all
about flavour when it comes to food.
The Petrignone Sangiovese, a wine
that has attained Tre Bichierri (three glasses) in the Gambero Rosso guide for
Italian wines and this, as well as being just a lovely wine to drink, worked
very nicely with a simple char siu (roasted barbeque pork) – a staple dish on
many tables at dim sum time.
We closed off the long lunch with
the Campo di Mezzo Sangiovese Superiore and with this we paired some five spice
dried beef and local style pork with pork jelly. Not being a fan of jelly
(especially when made with meat – vodka jelly shots, not a problem!) I
abstained on the pork dish but being a big fan of five spiced dried beef, dug
into that and it went very nicely with the subtle tannins but weighty nature of
the wine.
The key to pairing food and wine,
especially Asian food and in most cases here in Hong Kong, Chinese food, is not
to attempt to pair one wine with one dish. Many people make the assumption that
you can pair Chinese food to wine in the same way we pair Western food – you cannot.
Sure, there were combinations that did not work over lunch and these
combinations will never work no matter the wine – shrimp dumplings and red
wine? No thanks! But by keeping your options and your mind open (not to mention
every bottle) you can easily sit around a Chinese dinner or lunch table and
find the pairing that works. If that means opening 5 bottles and having 5
glasses of wine all at the same time, so be it – actually, that’s the best and
only way you will ever get the full experience.
Tre Monte wines are available in
Hong Kong from BNS (Asia) Limited and enquires can be made by email to martin@bns.com.hk
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