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The Malaysian Insider :: Food

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Wine battle shifts to US as French turn label conscious Posted: 16 Nov 2012 05:33 PM PST BORDEAUX, Nov 17 — With names like Prickly French and Villa Chambre d'Amour, French wine producers are casting aside traditional regional appellations in pursuit of a new generation of label-conscious consumers. Behind the trend lies a ferocious fight for market share with New World wines in which the United States is about to become the next battleground. So far, only a few of the wines that use Vin de France (wine of France) as a country appellation, have trickled into the US because of a dispute about what producers can put on the label. Battle royale, by the diktats of law.©Shutterstock.com That is all set to change however with the American authorities having finally agreed to allow wines using a country as their appellation of origin — rather than a region like Beaujolais — to also carry the date of the vintage. "The major French brand wines want to come to the US when they can put the vintage and the varietal on the label. They've been waiting for two years," said Valerie Pajotin, director of ANIVIN, the communications arm for Vin de France. A varietal wine is labelled with the grape variety like Merlot, and increasingly around the world it is this that guides consumers' selection rather than the precise origin of the wine. Global demand continues to outpace supply for France's top wines, but the trend towards varietals has made life harder in the middle market with non-French consumers often finding themselves baffled by labels that are the result of a combination of complex rules and centuries of tradition. "Pinot Noir, Chardonnay and Cabernet are the hot varietals right now," said Pierre-Yves Robin, senior wine buyer for American retailer Total Wine. Consumers however also see a vintage as a badge of quality in wine, which made American retailers reluctant to import French varietals without the year on the label. The new regime will come into force on November 13. French producers are hoping this will open the floodgates for the 148 Vin de France wines already approved for sale in the US$30-billion (RM91.8-billion) US market. Flexibility is the raison d'etre for the Vin de France category. "There are two advantages — one technical, one commercial," explains Emmanuel Montes, export director for Les Domaines Auriol in the Languedoc region of southern France. "Technically, it allows me to blend wine from different regions in France and create a unique product, with homogenous quality, labelled with the vintage and the grape variety. "Commercially, it puts us in competition with the big wine companies in the New World." 'Vintage connotes quality' Primarily targeting export markets, the Vin de France category came into existence in 2009 with the simultaneous demise of vin de table, or table wine, a category which few were sad to see go. The challenge has been to convince consumers that it is more than plonk with a snazzy label and both exporters and importers believe vintage dating will help achieve that goal. "Vintage connotes quality," said Total Wine's Robin. Eric Roure, oenologist at wine merchant LGI in southern France's Carcassonne, agreed. "If there is no vintage on the label, the consumer says, 'hmmm, this is just a table wine, it's not a quality wine'," he said. "Our Prickly French varietals with the vintage are selling really well in the UK and the Netherlands." Despite barriers to the American market, Vin de France production has grown from 300,000 hectolitres in 2009 to 1.23 million hectolitres in 2011. Castel, the giant French drinks company, produced 110 million bottles of Vin de France in 2011. While only 328,593 bottles were sent to America, China took 14 million. Smaller operators see an opportunity to attack specific export markets with tailored products. "The Chinese always want exclusivity," said Philippe Carrant of Wines Overland. "We're selling our Vin de France private brands Lafleur Gloria in China for exclusive distribution." In Sweden, Les Domaines Auriol won a contract with the state monopoly for one million hectolitres of organic wine. "That was not easy. We had to go to 80 growers," said Montes. "We couldn't have done it without the Vin de France label." Quality also comes into play. "Vin de France was created for the big operators, but for us, a small operator, it's given us the opportunity to create a high-quality brand wine," said Roure. "Our idea is not to take the basic wine from each region, but some of the best — the best of what France can do. This is what we've done with Prickly French." — AFP/Relaxnews

Oriental Cravings: A menu update Posted: 16 Nov 2012 04:28 PM PST The Fried Yam Cake has been updated with a few new ingredients like choy poh and peanuts. – Pictures by Eu Hooi Khaw KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 17 — Oriental Cravings is one of my favourite food stops in 1 Utama, whether it's for the Chicken Rice Wine Mee Sua, Roast Pork Curry Laksa or Hand-rolled Chee Cheong Fun, or just for lunch with rice and a few delectable dishes. There's always a home-cooked quality about the food, with some unexpected twists which work, such as in the Lotus Root Petai. The entrance of Oriental Cravings. Recently Oriental Cravings added new dishes to their menu. There is the Fried Yam Cake which by itself is pretty good already. But they added choy poh or preserved radish and long beans, then brought it all together with egg and topped with fried peanuts. It was a mouthful of different textures — the soft, creamy yam cake and the crunchy choy poh and peanuts. You get the hints of spices in the yam, the salty burst of the choy poh and the lovely egg that wrapped round it. When was the last time you ate Chilli Crabs and thought the sauce lacked something? Well, Oriental Cravings has done a Chilli Fish and the hot, sweet and sour sauce hit all the right notes. A fried red snapper was doused with this sauce that had a hot, fragrant lift from lots of minced ginger. For those who don't like fiddling with crabs, a fish is perfect. Some toasted bread was served with this... perfect for mopping up every bit of the sauce. The Curry of Yam, Chicken Feet, Pork Trotter and Pork Rump has not been properly named yet for the menu, but it's a Nyonya curry with the fragrant and spiced nuances well expressed in the soft, desirable yam, the fried and braised chicken feet, the tender pork rump and trotter. You slurp the thick curry off the chicken feet as you eat them. The chunks of pork had also soaked up the flavours of the delicious curry. I love the quirky name of this chicken dish: BB Chicken. The BB Chicken came in a claypot, and it has been so named because after eating it you would be whistling (the Cantonese word for whistle sounds like BB!) happily. The chicken is dark and caramelized after being braised in a special sauce, with garlic, shallots, dried chillies and curry leaves. It's a sticky sweet, lightly hot chicken dish, with the aromas of the chillies and curry leaves clinging to it. We liked it. I would order anything with bittergourd if I see it on the menu. I have had the Bittergourd with Salted Egg here, and the Bittergourd and Seaweed Soup, that had bittergourd stuffed with minced pork and prawns simmered in a soup with kei chee or wolfberries. Both turned out to be right choices. Bittergourd Noodles... absolutely delicious. Bittergourd Noodles are not on the menu but you can ask for them. These are rice noodles fried with lots of sliced bittergourd, homemade fishcake, pork and prawns. A scattering of fried lard bits made them more flavourful. The noodles were moist, with a slight bitter edge. We had to have the Chicken in Rice Wine. It's not easy to get a good rice wine to cook this, as much depends on the wine-maker and even the pantang she may or may not have observed in brewing it. It may turn out sweet or sour. The restaurant owners tried to take this dish off the menu, but regular customers clamoured for it, and so it's back. Cendol... a lovely way to end any meal here. Lovely aromas of ginger, wine and sesame oil  floated up as the claypot of Chicken in Rice Wine was served. There was the obligatory omelette on top, wood fungus and chicken pieces in it. The wine was sweet, with the warming heat of ginger.  I have had this wine chicken with mee sua, and it is simply unforgettable. Dessert was cendol, drizzled with a dark, distinctive coconuty Gula Melaka. The cendol was silky and redolent with pandan. The Chilli Fish is RM38.90, BB Chicken RM23.90, Fried Yam Cake RM13.90, the Curry of Yam, Chicken Feet and Pork RM26.90, Chicken in Rice Wine RM19.90. Oriental Cravings is located at 359 Ground Floor Rainforest, 1 Utama Shopping Centre, Petaling Jaya. Tel: 03-7727 2581.

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