The other day I visited Chiang Rai winery. A beautiful facility surrounded by the lush rugged mountains of Northern Thailand.

We were greeted by smiles, which is obviously common in Thailand and had a very friendly and informative tour of the winery.

I was very interested in visiting this winery, as it is the fruit winery that has the best reputation in Thailand. Their main story is that they make “health wines”. Wines that have health properties in the fruits they use or in the medicinal herbs steeped in the wine.

I tried the off-dry lychee wine that had a great aroma but unfortunately was not very balanced.

The mangosteen wine was interesting and apparently their best seller. However, the wine was a bit vinegary and lacked varietal aroma and taste of what fresh mangosteens demonstrate.

One wine, which I really like and actually purchased, was the “Thai Tokay Wine” made from several kinds of herbs, such as, Doh - Mi - Rue - Lom, Aloe Vera and Santol. An interesting blend made in the sweet style and a nice tropical fruit, honey, almost apricot flavour, which I found alluring.
The winery produces about 40 000 bottles a year and has no problem selling them, mostly to Japanese and Korean tourists.

A trip to Chiang Rai winery proved to be a unique and interesting winery tour that should be done by anyone visiting the area.

My father has been in China with us on holidays for a few weeks now. He has thoroughly enjoyed his trip and experienced daily life in China which was obviously totally alien to what he has been used to in the last 60 years.

Having worked with me in the wine industry in Canada before, he expressed his interest in visiting what a Chinese winery looks like so we spent a few hours doing a tour. What amazed him the most was the sheer amount of workers at a winery this size compared to the same size winery in North America or Europe. Labour is cheap hear, so this is one of the advantages most manufacturing companies here have. The winery is not as well organized as western world wineries would be but it did exceed what he expected to see.

As time goes on, this winery as well as the Chinese wine industry in general will be pretty much on par with the industry outside of China and the quality of its wines also. Watch out wine world, here comes China!