Wine Tales

In the last issue I celebrated my 45 years being in the hospitality business and how I still like it. This month is also a celebration as I have been contributing to the wine column of NOW!Bali Magazine for 5 years. It started all in September 2012 with my first article for the magazine, which […]

A Sommelier’s job is more than just knowing which are the perfect wines made from grapes. To not know, for example, how Cinzano, Madeira, Sherry, Port and so many other fortified wines are made would mean you are not a well versed sommelier. We call them fortified because these beverages are not only made of […]

Dear Inner Voice readers, after more than 11 years of being a Sommelier on the beautiful island of Bali, I would like to share some thoughts of what we call the ‘local’ wines. There are now two types of wines made in Bali, those producing on the island using imported grapes, or those producing wine […]

I was invited by the Treasury wine company in December 2016 to a very special wine tasting in Singapore with world renown Californian wineries. Invitations were given out to wine suppliers from other countries in Asia like Vietnam and Miramar and Malaysia and there was a big reason why this was done. The USA has […]

Soon we will celebrate Christmas, New Year and a few other special days afterwards. It will be the time when we open many great bubbling bottles from the most famous wine area of Champagne in France. The bubbling wine in champagne glasses bring us the most welcoming feeling during this festive season. It is actually […]

For almost 42 years I have been in the business of Food and Beverages and I must say that all restaurants, Wine Chateaux and Wineries in the world have secrets. What kinds of secrets are they? The secrets Wine Châteaux and Wineries do not like to speak off are mostly the ownership. This is okay […]

For a long time I have wanted to write something about the people in-charge of the wine here in Bali. Yes, of course, sommeliers like myself order the wines for our wine lists, but without the help and support of our suppliers our wine lists wouldn’t even exist! This would render far less choice for […]

If guests ask me about the behavior towards wine in fine dining restaurants, I answer say to the, “If you really want to know than I will tell you, but it is going to take a while!” Why? Well, there are the hidden rules for the guest and the service staff. Yss, of course there […]

In my 43 years of being a sommelier, the most frequently asked question I hear from my colleagues is, “What wine should go with this dish?” Indeed, what is the right accompaniment for foie gras, lobster, oyster, wagyu beef, rack of lamb and so on? I must admit that today, wine pairing is more complicated […]

Wine lovers, last month I discussed my wine tasting process. How, with a sample, I would taste a particular wine over a whole week. That over this period of time the wine would mature, taking in more oxygen as it breathes – it would also give me the opportunity to taste it with different dishes. […]