Lesser-known varieties impress

The Hong Kong based wine writer was on his second trip to New Zealand when he judged the awards this year and he confessed to being surprised at the lesser known white wines he tasted and judged.

"In Hong Kong we are very familiar with Pinot Noir and Sauvignon Blanc from New Zealand but there are other grape varieties that are not that well known and in these wine awards, I found a lot of different grape varieties that showed well. It was a surprise – and a good one," Lau said, after three days of judging.
He suggests that New Zealand Albarino, Arneis and Gruner Veltliner are particularly impressive, from his perspective.

"The Albarinos were extremely good and, in my view, they are easily of an international standard and can compete on that scale, which is good because it is still so early in the life of New Zealand Albarino," he said.

Lau was also a fan of the Gruner Veltliner and, in terms of red wines, he was taken aback at the high quality of New Zealand Syrah.

"It's good to know that more wine producers in New Zealand grow different kinds of grape varieties and make different styles of wines because we tend to look at quite a narrow range of New Zealand wines in Hong Kong."

He says that it would be advantageous for New Zealand wineries to produce higher volumes of their less well-known wines.

"I really think that the wine producers in New Zealand should try a wider range of different grape varieties rather than just Sauvignon Blanc, Pinot Noir and some of the other mainstream ones they currently produce. This would be especially good for our Hong Kong market because we like to explore different things."

Lau has been on the record prior to this interview to say that he is not strongly focused on wine and food matching, but when interviewed for New Zealand Winegrower, he said that New Zealand's whites – both the existing successes and the new wave experimental whites – tended to partner extremely well with Japanese and Cantonese food.

"The lightness and delicacy that can come through in these foods can work very well with New Zealand white wines because
the wines are also light and delicate. This is something that the Chinese market would be very interested in being able to obtain," he said.

Behind the scenes of his wine judging, Lau is an author of six wine books, to date, as well as the editor and author of two wine books for the Greater China Wine Critics' Association.

He has created two CDs; Music & Wine - The Perfect Matching and Red: A Music & Wine Party. Both were produced by Warner Music Hong Kong. He has been the co-chairman of the Shanghai International Wine Challenge since 2011 and makes a Super Tuscan in southern Tuscany.

"I am onto the second vintage which will be released soon. I created a brand for this wine, which is called Dolce Vita."