Located close to the Gulf of Thailand near the Equator, Siam Winery’s Hua Hin Vineyard is probably not the kind of place to be growing grapes from colombard to dornfelder and sangiovese, given Thailand’s merciless tropical weather that pits two polarized seasons – the wet season from April to October and the dry season from November to March – against each other.
Attempts of winemaking often ended up with cooked bottles and vinegar. Even if grapes turned out to be great, no matter how much work one can do in the vineyards to perfect viticulture, one monsoon season can flush everything down the drain (this happened to be the case for the 2009 vintage when the winery failed to produce any red wines after rain flooded the red grape vines).
About nine years ago, Kathrin Puff, a German-born winemaker, took up the challenge to make not only drinkable but quality wines in severe tropical climates after years of stints in various wineries such as Chianti Classico’s Dieviole in Italy, later in Germany, and New Zealand. By the time of my visit around harvest in March, she was much at ease after overseeing eight harvests at the winery’s premium vineyard, responsible for producing its premium wines under the Monsoon Valley label.
The 2016 harvest just wrapped up, and looks to be a good vintage, says Kathrin. But last year’s vintage was perhaps one of the best vintages so far for the winery; “an amazing vintage” in fact, as Kathrin says. The short cool spell near harvest helped preserve aromas in the grapes for shiraz and colombard, the two major grapes planted here.
The colombard grape, in particular, was by far the best grape variety to adapt well into Thailand’s tropical climate. Planted on 17 hectares out of 45 hectares of the vineyard, the grape yields 10 tons per hectare, much higher than the average 5-to-8-ton yields of other varieties planted here. In addition, the acidity in the grapes can reach an ideal level thanks to the heat, says the winemaker. “Usually the grape is used as a blend in sparkling wines, and not in a single varietal because it’s too high in alcohol and too acidic,” Kathrin explains. “The thing I usually worry most about is acidity, but because of the heat, the acidity drops greatly. With the colombard, we have 3.8 pH when we harvest. We have lovely acidity and we don’t even have to acidify,” she continues. The 2014 vintage was tasted by James late last year, and is “a bright and refreshing white,” comments James.
In addition to colombard and shiraz, there are also various varietals planted including chenin blanc, sangiovese, muscat and dornfelder. Figuring out viticulture in tropical climates is more or less like working in uncharted waters. “Most of the time, what’s written in the book doesn’t mean it’s gonna work in the vineyards,” says the winemaker, underlining the importance of grape experimenting.
A few years back, she started experimenting with sangiovese. “It’s an on-going project; we collect data and analyze all the parameters to see how it will go,” Kathrin reveals, despite current results being less than satisfactory. However, an experiment with German grape dornfelder was quite rewarding. In 2011, she planted the red grape in the vineyard, and the ensuing result was surprisingly good despite remarkable terrior and climatic differences. For example, pH content of soil in Hua Hin is much lower compared with that of Germany and the top soil layer there only measures between 0.4 to one meter, thinner than soils in vineyards in Germany, Kathrin explains, citing some examples. “Again, it’s coming from Germany. It’s not hot there, but why the heck it works here? We don’t know. You just plant the grape and see if it works or not,” she confesses.
Usually, the harvest at the vineyard is around March and chenin blanc is the latest grape harvested here to make a sweet wine. The 2015 vintage was by far the highest-rated wine from James, who called it “a stylish and pretty wine.”
Still, Kathrin admits they are nevertheless in the experimental stage. Challenges such as monsoons and disease in the wet season still loom big. Because of Thailand’s months long raining season, this made grapes especially prone to diseases such as Downy mildew in the early stage of sprouting until blooming in the dry season. Inevitably it requires extensive vineyard care such as defoliation and preventive sprays. In addition, a shortage of daylight – a result of its proximity to the Equator – poses challenges for grape maturity as well. The vineyard gets 12 hours of sunlight, but for the same grape, shiraz, for instance, when planted in Australia, enjoys 16 hours instead.
Another distinct characteristic of Thailand’s tropical winemaking is its “two seasons, one harvest” approach, which means there are two vegetative seasons – first pruning from April till May during the wet season, second pruning from October to November during dry season – yet only the dry season pruning will lead to a crop. During the wet season pruning, no grape production is rendered, only vegetative development. This is to “act as an recovery season for the vines to reinforce the vitality”, explains the winemaker.
These, however, all inevitably add up to intensive manual care in the vineyards and production costs, adds the winemaker.
Production at the winery is usually around 350,000 bottles, and its flagship wines such as cuvée de siam blanc, late harvest chenin blanc, shiraz and white shiraz are exported to the UK, Scandinavia, Netherlands, Hong Kong, and Japan, among others. You can click here to see James’ ratings for all the wines.
Photos from top to bottom: Kathrin Puff, deputy technical director and winemaker at Siam Winery, examining grapes in the vineyard; Dornfelder grapes planted in the vineyard; chenin blanc grapes; Siam Winery Monsoon Valley Muscat 2015 and Siam Winery Monsoon Valley Late Harvest Chenin Blanc 2015; Hua Hin vineyard
-Natalie Wang, managing editor of JamesSuckling.com
