Box Wine

[giddyup]

12 minutes ago, Shaunduhpostman said:

On-line Thai home brew shops have sprung up in the last few years and last I checked, about a year ago, you can buy everything  you need to brew quite a wide variety of beers. Of course beer is no substitute for wine, but as most home brew shops back home also get into home brew wine, perhaps there will now be enough demand for that in Thailand.

How much is it going to cost to buy enough grapes  to make wine? I don't see any saving there.

[Shaunduhpostman]

10 minutes ago, giddyup said:

How much is it going to cost to buy enough grapes  to make wine? I don't see any saving there.

Dunno, you might be right, tho it's certainly within the realm of possibility to  make a better wine than could be bought, plus develop a rewarding hobby, here's a page with links to a buncha online shops in Thailand:

 

http://data.danetsoft.com/homebrewthailand.com/

[giddyup]

2 minutes ago, Shaunduhpostman said:

Dunno, you might be right, tho it's certainly within the realm of possibility to  make a better wine than could be bought, plus develop a rewarding hobby, here's a page with links to a buncha online shops in Thailand:

 

http://data.danetsoft.com/homebrewthailand.com/

Brewing beer is different, you can drink it after a couple of weeks in the bottle, wine takes much longer to mature to be drinkable.  If you only enjoy a wine occasionally, most could probably afford the price of an imported decent wine at around 500 baht a bottle.

[vogie]

23 minutes ago, giddyup said:

How much is it going to cost to buy enough grapes  to make wine? I don't see any saving there.

Cartons of fruit/grape juice will suffice.

[giddyup]

Just now, vogie said:

Cartons of fruit/grape juice will suffice.

If it was that easy the French would be doing it. You can make "wine" from just about any kind of fruit, whether it would be any improvement over a cheap plonk like Montclair is doubtful.

[xylophone]

1 minute ago, giddyup said:

Brewing beer is different, you can drink it after a couple of weeks in the bottle, wine takes much longer to mature to be drinkable.  If you only enjoy a wine occasionally, most could probably afford the price of an imported decent wine at around 500 baht a bottle.

I once made some wine way back yonder and used grape juice concentrate.

 

Made it and bottled it and it was ready for drinking...……..many wines are made without the need to mature, and mine was blind tasted against some French Cote du Roussillon Villages red and no-one could tell the difference!!!!

 

I heard that it was illegal to make one's own wine in Thailand...…..any feedback on that?

[vogie]

6 minutes ago, giddyup said:

If it was that easy the French would be doing it. You can make "wine" from just about any kind of fruit, whether it would be any improvement over a cheap plonk like Montclair is doubtful.

You are obviously a very knowledgeable person.

[giddyup]

6 minutes ago, vogie said:

You are obviously a very knowledgeable person.

Not as knowledgeable as you have to be to make good wine. A neighbour gave me some of his home brew wine to try, it was undrinkable, you could have stripped paint with it.

[Shaunduhpostman]

4 minutes ago, giddyup said:

Brewing beer is different, you can drink it after a couple of weeks in the bottle, wine takes much longer to mature to be drinkable.  If you only enjoy a wine occasionally, most could probably afford the price of an imported decent wine at around 500 baht a bottle.

Yes, true, most beer is good enough pretty quickly. Imperial stouts and many Belgian type beers are better after a year or longer, I actually prefer those, but ale is almost as good. In any case I can't be bothered with any of it, it's too hot where I live to be able to ferment beer without resorting to big electric bills to run refridgeration. I just fork out for wine. Tho that said, the wine I like, available at TESCO, is not too bad and hasn't gone up in price or out of stock, its imported from Australia, forgotten the name, has a Kangaroo on the bottle, CAbernet, Merlot, Shiraz, Chardonnay, and I think some other type of white as well, only 375 baht for 750 ml. and tastes better than many of the 500 baht wines you find. Its actually grape juice wine as well, not hibiscus tea or pomegranite based fruit wine as is being discussed here, the Montclaire and some other cheap wines. They taste OK to me, but I don't buy them because they are not very clear about what it is they are selling and feel they are deceiving people without printing it on the front label that it is fruit wine, not grape wine, or 30% grape wine or whatever it is.

[Shaunduhpostman]

21 minutes ago, xylophone said:

I once made some wine way back yonder and used grape juice concentrate.

 

Made it and bottled it and it was ready for drinking...……..many wines are made without the need to mature, and mine was blind tasted against some French Cote du Roussillon Villages red and no-one could tell the difference!!!!

 

I heard that it was illegal to make one's own wine in Thailand...…..any feedback on that?

It is illegal to make beer but the penalties are negligible as far as I know. A 1,000 baht fine and they confiscate your hooch and maybe your rig as well. As long as you don't share it with other people or sell it, you are in the clear. How they are able to sell supplies without being shut down...well...TIT.

 

I see also that there is wine yeast available in Thai online brewshops (see the link I posted above).

[vogie]

23 minutes ago, xylophone said:

I once made some wine way back yonder and used grape juice concentrate.

 

Made it and bottled it and it was ready for drinking...……..many wines are made without the need to mature, and mine was blind tasted against some French Cote du Roussillon Villages red and no-one could tell the difference!!!!

 

I heard that it was illegal to make one's own wine in Thailand...…..any feedback on that?

The fine is 200baht for making it, for the police it is not worth their bother. If you sell it though, big fine and possibly jail. Message me if you want more help.

[sammieuk1]

With Mar Sol 4lt 780tb  gone its time to pack in the alcohol the only comparable is 2lt bottle laughing bird Aussie 419tb at Makro with the pound like a Turkish lira again and a government trying to run an army on wine sales  prices are a joke a Big Joke.  

[xylophone]

58 minutes ago, sammieuk1 said:

With Mar Sol 4lt 780tb  gone its time to pack in the alcohol the only comparable is 2lt bottle laughing bird Aussie 419tb at Makro with the pound like a Turkish lira again and a government trying to run an army on wine sales  prices are a joke a Big Joke.  

I'm still buying various Aussie wines (no fruit juice added) for 345, 365, 410 and 440 baht a bottle...……..same with Chilean wines.

[StevieAus]

8 hours ago, xylophone said:

I buy real Aussie wine here and drink it every day, and sometimes share with friends at a local restaurant...……..couldn't do without it!

Same here but also prefer the NZ Sav Blanc

[Shaunduhpostman]

I'm wondering if these still relatively reasonably priced wines for 300+ baht are just old stock from when before the tax hit. I had assumed that the tax somehow wasn't affecting th ewines that I bought, but with this thread it seems maybe none of it has kicked in till just recently.

[xylophone]

1 hour ago, Shaunduhpostman said:

I'm wondering if these still relatively reasonably priced wines for 300+ baht are just old stock from when before the tax hit. I had assumed that the tax somehow wasn't affecting th ewines that I bought, but with this thread it seems maybe none of it has kicked in till just recently.

There certainly seems no method in the prices now, with random price increases, none at all or the occasional decrease??

[drummer boy]

On ‎5‎/‎12‎/‎2018 at 4:17 PM, khunPer said:

It's been discussed in another thread a while ago, where it was stated to be due to the government has changed the taxation.

 

Where I live, I saw that Mount Clair white (fruit) wine is back in 3-liter cartons (only) for 995 baht a piece in Makro; seem like new stock at new price. Both Makro and Tesco-Lotus still has quite a lot of old stock of Mount Clair red wine, whilst almost all other boxed wine has disappeared, apart from a few (very) dry red, which presumably nobody wants, as they they have been boring alone on the shelf for a couple of month...

Still get mont clair red 5lt box in ban chang 1000baht 

[rickudon]

In Udon Thani 2 litre bottles have now disappeared. Looked at 3 shops and only had 3 litre Montclair at 995 baht or assorted 70 cl bottles at 399 baht and up. The wine display areas have shrunk by 50%, and i think will shrink further at these insane prices.

 

Yes, home made wine from juice and fruit now 'available'. And to be honest, tastes as good as the old fruit wines.....

 

One development - customs at Nong Khai have started confiscating wine, never cared about how much you brought in before.

[Andrew65]

I used to drink the Mont Clair in the 5L box. Very drinkable, although I'm no connoisseur of wine (or anything else), so long as it tastes ok & gets ya p****ed, it's ok. Part of why I stopped buying it is that once in the fridge it was a bit too "convenient" to keep going back for refills!

 

My German friend, who knows his wine, insists that MC is an affront to humanity - Beelzebub's urine!

[xylophone]

On ‎12‎/‎05‎/‎2018 at 7:29 PM, Bredbury Blue said:

Are they any good boxed wines? A guy at work recommended African something

African Horizon and I've seen it at Villa Market, and 5L is cheaper than the usual suspects, so I decided to have a closer look, because it seems to have "come out of nowhere" and is cheap.

 

Managed to find the cask/box filling date and it was March 2017!!! So depending upon where it has been and how it's been stored, it could be OTT or perhaps very average, even for a fruit wine. Caveat Emptor.

[WonderfulDay]

3 hours ago, xylophone said:

African Horizon and I've seen it at Villa Market

The box says something like "flavored alcoholic beverage" so not even fruit wine.

[xylophone]

13 hours ago, WonderfulDay said:

The box says something like "flavored alcoholic beverage" so not even fruit wine.

I do believe that and "Aromatized alcoholic beverage" mean that something is added to the wine to flavour it, and that can be fruit juice.

 

 

[WonderfulDay]

6 hours ago, xylophone said:

I do believe that and "Aromatized alcoholic beverage" mean that something is added to the wine to flavour it, and that can be fruit juice.

 

 

How does it taste? I almost bought it once, then changed mind

[sungod]

31 minutes ago, WonderfulDay said:

How does it taste? I almost bought it once, then changed mind

You chose wisely, without a doubt, the worst box wine I have ever had, tastes more of fruit juice. My wife will drink any cheap plonk, even she said it was pants.

[xylophone]

1 hour ago, WonderfulDay said:

How does it taste? I almost bought it once, then changed mind

Well sungod gave you an answer so seems like you were lucky!!

 

I bought a bottle of French wine which looked the real deal, label-wise and didn't pick up on the Aromatized...…….. description (unusual for me as wine is a hobby of mine).Tasted like gnats wizz. 

 

And I have to say that if I ever were to have to resort to the fruit wines (lets hope my investments hold out) the one which I have tasted which IMO was passable was the Berri Estates Rich red wine, from Oz.

[WonderfulDay]

I used to buy Malpica Smooth Red for 800 THB / 4l box

 

Chilled + bit of water made it easy to drink. They don't sell it anywhere now.

[xylophone]

11 minutes ago, WonderfulDay said:

I used to buy Malpica Smooth Red for 800 THB / 4l box

 

Chilled + bit of water made it easy to drink. They don't sell it anywhere now.

From Siam Winery (same as Montclair) so no reason why it shouldn't??

[Shaunduhpostman]

Sorry for the long post, I realize it is long, so need to inform me, but I enjoyed writing it. By all means skip the post if its too long for you, the topic is of interest to me and may be to a few others. Sorry to have inconvenienced anyone for whom the topic doesn't warrant detailed ruminations and so forth. At any rate if you want to cut to the chase, the first paragraph is the essential thing I had to say here. After that I go onto consider and try to get my head around this situation with Montclair wine which is I think troubling whether you drink Montclair or not, whether drink daily or only at Christmas.

 

Yesterday I was at Tops supermarket in a major large town out here in Isaan, and sure enough the Montclair has soared in price. Seems to me a few years ago it was around 200 something baht (299?) per 75 cl bottle  now 399 a bottle. Makes no sense to buy anymore, seeing as the Y-not brand of wines, which are actual grape wines from Australia were 350 baht or so and what I like Australian World Vineyard's non-fruit wine grape wines are available at TESCO at 375 baht.  Perhaps Montclair is being targeted for selective enforcement of the taxation, but that doesn't fully make sense either as Montclair, I thought, was only partially grape juice so as to get around taxation and that that was precisely the whole point of their whole existence and how they were able to provide cheaper wine. Maybe as part of the revamping of the alcohol taxation laws they've closed that loop hole, if I had to guess what's happened it would be that.

 

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 Further speculation about the alcohol situation plus some things that I have been noticing. Of course it all looks like whingeing but actually I don't care. Who needs wine or drinkable beer or even coffee?:

 

There was one actually quite good Thai wine that I used to see 10-20 years ago called Chateau de Loei. I wonder what happened to that one? I'm sure most of you would scoff at a Thai wine, and I did too until I bought a bottle just out of curiosity and was pretty massively impressed. I ended up making it my go to bottle for a year or so. Back then (2002?)  it was 300 baht for 75 cls, probably would be going for 400-500 now. All that said, I felt they were overcharging, the wine was good, very solid, but nothing extraordinary, not much better than say World Vineyards Chardonnay or Merlot that I now get for 375 at TESCO. Personally I have no interest in extraordinary wine just good reasonably priced stuff. But Chateau de Loei had its own vineyards in Loei and it was a legit domestically produced wine.But what I felt was disappointing about Chateau de Loei was they seemed to be charging the import "tax" despite there not being any, or so I would assume. A wine like Chateau de Loei would not have been 8 dollars (300 baht)  in say California in 2002, more like 5 dollars. Two buck Chuck's legendary 2 dollar California wines were no worse, but those were rather miraculously good value wines which I am not sure even exist in CAlifornia. I have also had very drinkable wines in places like Italy that were dirt cheap. The exhorbitant price of wine in Thailand is down to taxation mostly. But Chateau de Loei seemed to have no interest in say taking over the wine market away from the imports with 200 baht bottles of very drinkable even nice wine which I imagine they could do. What I've heard about Loei is that parts of it are dry enough to be able to grow good wine grapes, but I would guess only tiny micro climate zones, so perhaps any major wine making would have a pretty low ceiling, so perhaps they felt there was no point in trying to enter into fully domestic large scale wine production. Still you wonder if some enterprising Thai couldn't make a go of it, produce solid wines for 200-300 baht a bottle.

 

Another aspect is the shrinking alcohol sections even in Bangkok supermarkets. Anything that is not Chang or Leo looks like it is being crowded off the shelves, including wine of course. It suggests an increasingly pressurized situation from likely a number of sources.I would guess that it all boils down to not only new taxation schemes and enforcement pressures but simply the fact that people don't have money to buy wine or even nice ales and stouts and the like. It would not surprise me that people have less disposable income to buy Chang and Leo as well. Beer is not essential drink for Thais and still luxury for many even if it is the now not so cheap Leo and Chang. So wine is simply an even more expendable niche area like just about any kind of alcohol that isn't Leo or Chang. Seems like up in Isaan there was a time when wine may have been a trendy way to blow a bunch of money and impress someone but it seems no longer, there is almost no wine in the alcohol section at TESCO where I live where the aforementioned Montclair wines have become  the central feature of the meager selection offered, whereas 5 years ago there was quite a surprising variety of all kinds of wines. And now it seems Montclair is under fire. I used to ask myself , who can buy say, for example, Merlot Night Harvest Sonoma County 2012  at 900 baht a bottle? And now, the answer to that, to inverse quote Air Asia, now nobody can fly. I no longer see an expensive though once widely available Chilean wine Casa del Diablo. Its just gone and hasn't been seen around here in a few large towns  for 6 months. I didn't care for it that much, too expensive, fancy bottle and label, but it seemed to be quite popular with the few Thais who splash out on wine from time to time. Its just as perplexing as to what is going on with Montclair, if you ask me. Seems to suggest there is quite a lot of maneuvering and levels to all of this: Large brewer distilleries having to find new strategies to continue maximizing their profits, people in government honing in on prohibition as an easy way to get votes, promotions and salary increases, law enforcement needing ever more income sources from soft targets.

 

 And of course the Thai brewing/distilling giants are also likely flexing their muscles in the face of increasing pressure from probably worse sales, from political opponents and reformists such as our minders, the ever sagacious beehive hair and large glasses temperance contingents in government ministries and universities who as i recall at one point were urging the govt to require that shops turn bottles 180 degrees around on the shelves so as not to entice people to buy booze. I've seen rather dissapointing developments as some supermarkets up here  have tossed all of the good European old stand by beers such as Weinstaphaner, Schneider Weisse, Fullers, Leffe, Duvel some of which were always widely available in Thailand and replaced them with much more expensive but no better "craft" brews with cute owls and dogs on their labels such as Hitachino and Brew Dog  at some supermarkets or just more Chang and Leo as in the case of TESCO. The craft brew thing suits the Thai mega brewers  well enough I would guess, better to have to compete with little punk IPA breweries than large European breweries some of them such as Hoegarden probably just as large as Singha, but making infinitely better beer at not much more per bottle in the home countries. With craft brews at 200 baht a bottle, just having 4-5 bottles of each on the shelf is enough, most people won't even see that they are there and which leaves more room for Chang. At the high price, the beer stays on the shelf too long and doesn't taste that good anyway, so Singha and Chang are going to win against the craft brew movement.

 

That said there are some startup Thai brewers making some drinkable ales at 112 baht a bottle. They are not making craft brews but the marketing seems similar. That said they are far better beers than Singha and Chang lines. Mahanakorn pale Ale is one, Busaba weissebeir, and an IPA with a Koala on the lable, I forget the name. One group brews in Australia another in Cambodia another in Taiwan I believe. It is too complicated for them to brew in Thailand it would seem but they are Thai run and for the Thai market. Of course none of that is a substitute for wine but demand for those beers it seems would help further the notion that small alcohol manufacturers can make reasonably priced, more healthy and more drinkable stuff and that would create a healthier environment for alcohol and paradoxically a healthier drinking climate leading to a healthier population, god forbid. As we all know, Wine is an important part of healthy and reasonable drinking culture.  Restrictions and large distillery/brewery monopolies result in plonk that tastes bad and is laden with other toxic chemicals. When you have nothing but bad tasting stuff available in short time windows  you are shoe horned into not having any other reason to drink than to get drunk and to get it all in as quickly as possible as you won't be allowed to buy it after 12 or after 2pm. Blah blah blah we all know this and it wouldn't surprsie me if teh Thais know this but simply want to wage war on their own people and push them into higher levels of alcoholism with a culture of prohibition.

Also part of the problem with the wine is no doubt supermarket managers and staff who could find work arounds for  situation but can't be bothered, they likely aren't interested in anything other than Singha and Chang and there is no slary increase incentives for keeping alcohol setions vital and providing good variety. Wine and decent drinkable stuff is lost on most people in Thailand. I don't know why supermarket managers at some stores don't just get rid of the alternative to Chang Leo section altogether and just say, "Too expensive, nobody buy it." What Tops here in several  large towns here in Isaan has done is double the number of Chang and Leo and Spy wine coolers on the shelves this year and everything else looks neglected and literally pushed or even backed into a dusty corner. Wine and the like it is hoped will just go away so as to make the job of ordering and stocking shelves more convenient. Despite signs hung up on the shelves in the liquor section cheerily saying in English"Anything you want that you don't see? Just ask our staff and have it ordered for you!" I checked it and indeed just window dressing. I asked staff, asked the manager after asking minor staff first to no avail, they mostly weren't particularly interested to listen to me. The manager looked clearly unhappy for my suggesting they order stuff that they had just thought they could flush and never have to hear about let alone order again. I was supposed to just forget my favorite beer Weinstaphaner Korbinian or Fuller's London Porter or Cooper's Stout and settle for Czech Primator stout a bland and frankly bad stout for 200 baht a bottle that they have a few bottles of sitting there under the wine coolers. I'm sure the word "Primator" means to people ordering the beer that it is good beer, end of story. The other stuff Korbinian with a Bishop on the lable, is just for dinosaur Catholics who have already died. Cute punk rock beer with blue carton dogs on the label is what good beer is about we'll order six bottles of that which we might be able to move in 6 months. Needless to say, despite being told "OK, we'll reorder the old beer and coming in maybe two weeks," the beers never appeared and a year later still haven't and likely never will. The  230 baht a small bottles of cute owl craft Japanese beer has all disappeared as well. I'm oK with it all tho, but how long will I be able to buy my 375 baht bottle of Australian grape wine I really don't know, seems not for long. I'm just glad that another middle level staff listened to me when I pointed out that despite all three supermarkets in town selling many types of coffee, coffee filters have not been seen or heard from anhywhere in town  in 5 months. I told her I have to ask my neice in Bangkok to go to Tops there and buy me a three months supply of filters and post them to me. My complaint was the third such complaint to the store with no action taken but this particular staff probably was a coffee drinker so the light  came on and she chuckled at the obvious irony of selling coffee but no means to brew it and the next week the shelves were overflowing with coffee filters. Having spent time in Jakarta working for a time, I well know the Javanese style of just putting the grounds in the cup and drinking the brew off the top doing your best not disturb the grounds. Still, it is a grittier cup of coffee and I prefer not having a mouthful of grounds. If coffee filters are just too obscure an item and having ever more varieties of instant Nestle coffee is what floats people's boat who am I to say anything?

[xylophone]

Phew........ I bet you feel better after that!

 

I too like writing about wine as it's been a hobby of mine for 45 years or thereabouts, however I can't address all of what's in your post, but I will put forward a few theories.

 

All the time the likes of Montclair could get away without paying the full amount of tax/revenue on their wines because they were mixed with fruit juice, then the product was cheap on the shelves, but that loophole has been closed, hence the price increase.

 

As you quite rightly stated, when one can buy "real wine" from Tesco's (and it's only 349 baht here) why would someone pay nearly 400 baht for a bottle of Montclair? So rather than finding its niche in the marketplace, it is now competing with other lower-priced wines like the one I've mentioned, and a few from Chile and even a few from Australia which I've managed to find (lucky me).

 

As for supermarkets, well I was told by someone high up in the Big C family here that this supermarket chain has been taken over by the owners of Chang (whether fully or partially, I'm not sure) so expect to see more of their product and associated products.

 

Furthermore I remember once asking why the wine area does not have promotions and was told that the advertising (not sure of the exact form) of alcohol is forbidden, hence I have to scour the shelves of supermarkets to see if any of the wine has a promotional price on it, because they're not allowed to advertise it as such, and occasionally bargains can be found by looking hard.

 

I was told by someone in the industry that the reason wine keeps getting hit with increases is because the owners of the large distillers/brewers who make the Hong Thong and Sangsom (and others) really want to keep their prices low in comparison to other alcohol, so that they sell more, so if wine is increased, then their product looks better/more affordable??

 

Lots of arguments could be had around that, so not worth going into here.

 

As for your comments on Château Loei, well if you scour the Internet you will find that of late the write-ups have been from average to poor to abysmal, so perhaps they've lost their way a little bit?

 

I think that's covered about all I wanted to say, however as there are many other wine enthusiasts on this thread and others, so no doubt more info and keen discussion can be had.

[Shaunduhpostman]

^^ Thanks for the news about Chateau de Loei, too bad, but not surprising.