Thailand is now making award-winning wines – and here’s the woman behind it

Remarkable Living

Thailand is now making award-winning wines – and here's the woman behind it

Nikki Lohitnavy, who runs GranMonte Estate, is changing the perception of Thai wine internationally. And she's determined to take the industry to the next level.

06 Dec 2022 06:30AM (Updated: 21 May 2022 04:14PM)

Nikki Lohitnavy is Thailand's beginning and merely female winemaker. "In high schoolhouse, when I told our career advisors that I wanted to report vino, they said: 'yous're from Thailand, information technology'due south non a wine region', and 'you're Asian, and you're female'. I was like: 'I'thousand going to exist a winemaker and so that I can show them I tin can abound grapes and make vino'," she recalled.

Nikki Lohitnavy, who runs GranMonte Estate in Thailand, has inverse the perception of the country'due south wine thanks to her perseverance and passion. Now she is determined to have the industry to the next level.

Lohitnavy runs GranMonte Manor in Asoke Valley, located in Thailand's Nakhon Ratchasima commune. Information technology is the only winery in the world that uses grapes exclusively grown in Thailand.

GranMonte sits on the foothills of Khao Yai, Thailand's third largest national park. Its peak, cool climate and calcium-rich red dirt, similar to soil conditions in Europe and Commonwealth of australia, brand it a suitable site for grape growing and winemaking.

An aeriform view of GranMonte Estate. (Photo: Freestate Productions)

Lohitnavy'south passion for winemaking stems from her parents, who are wine enthusiasts. They bought the two-hectare slice of country, which used to be a cornfield and cashew plantation, a decade ago. They started the vineyard every bit a hobby.

"It'southward definitely office of my childhood. Afterward school, we would drive up from Bangkok, and spend the weekend here. So, I was helping out in the vineyard, and just seeing how the vines grow. My dad would open up a bottle of wine and let me sniff it a picayune bit. I was fascinated past how each grape is of a dissimilar variety when they are grown at different sites, with unlike soil and different climates. They can taste and smell really different," she said.

Lohitnavy's passion for winemaking stems from her parents, who are wine enthusiasts. (Photo: Freestate Productions)

With her parents' approving, Lohitnavy went to Australia to study oenology and viticulture.

"There were many things that I learnt that I brought dorsum right abroad to help my parents change the fashion we managed the vineyard. Like how nosotros grow the vines and the harvest parameters we should look for.

"Nosotros experiment quite a lot at GranMonte because we're one of the first to grow grapes in this country. In that location's nothing in textbooks that could teach usa to abound grapes in the torrid zone, so we have to exercise all the experiments ourselves. I actually accept my own R&D team to experiment with different grape varietals planted on dissimilar soils, and to make new types of wine," Lohitnavy said.

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GranMonte has evolved into a business for the whole family. There's now a wine store and a eating place, in add-on to its vineyard and laboratory facilities. Lohitnavy'due south father, Visooth, is the chief executive; her mother Sakuna is the president and curates their restaurant'south food card; her sister Mimi is its public relations and marketing managing director.

GranMonte wines have won several awards. The 2022 Durif and 2022 Cremant took gold at the prestigious Vienna Austrian Wine Challenge in 2019. The wines are now exported to Japan, Hong Kong, the Philippines, Switzerland and France.

"10 years ago, when people heard well-nigh Thai wine, they'd go 'Oh god, is it drinkable?' I don't desire to attempt information technology!'. I think I have inverse the scene of wine in Thailand a petty flake," said Lohitnavy.

GranMonte wines have won several awards, and are now exported to Japan, Hong Kong, the Philippines, Switzerland and France. (Photo: Freestate Productions)

"It's such a new industry hither — only xx years onetime. There's and then much to do, and I'm e'er thinking 'Okay, next vintage, what am I going to brand adjacent?" Perhaps I'll make a sparkling rose. Maybe a natural vino fermented in our wood," Lohitnavy said.

Adapted from the series Remarkable Living. Watch total episodes on CNA, every Dominicus at 8.30pm.

Thailand is now making award-winning wines – and here’s the woman behind it

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