Tasting the Moment of Finesse

21st May 2010. Written by Xin Li with Vinleon.

Moment of Finesse was an event organized by Wine@TpChangkat, a Youth interest group under Tampines Youth Executive Council. The event was a wine-tasting event with MP for Tampines GRC and Advisor to Tampines Grassroots Organizations, Mr Irene Ng, gracing the event.

The participating wine distributors were:
Wine Caviar
Palitalia Singapore
Assetton

Why did we go for such an event, besides wanting to know more about wine, we were there to support our BMT mate, who the vice-chairman of the interest group. We remember him from our BMT days as the Key IC. It was a very stressful and busy appointment then, especially during booking outs.

The event took place at the famed Zouk at the Velvet Underground. By the time, the event ended around 9-10 pm, the whole area was swarmed by all kinds of people.

There were at least 6 kinds of wine being served ranging from Greek whites to Spanish reds (considered a lot for a short duration of 1-2 hours). While, I still can’t figure out how one can taste apricot, peach, berries, mocha etc in wine, I do know what I enjoyed. My preference was to the lighter-tasting, fragrant Semeli Mountain Sun White with a pleasant aftertaste, a Greek wine with Robert Parker 89 points.

Anyway, since it was a wine-tasting event, I was interested how wine would go with food so I brought my own Australian Camembert Cheese, Arnott Water Crackers and some Calmeria grapes. At first, I thought wine and food pairing is probably a pretentious thing, but after trying Camembert Cheese with a Spanish red (unfortunately I was unable to recall the name) as it was provided from the booth instead of the formal presentation. The mild creamy cheese goes down very smoothly with this particular wine which complements it sweetly in contrast to the Chateau Mas Neuf, Costieres de Nimes – 2007 (red) which clashed with the camembert cheese resulting in an unpleasant bitter aftertaste. Food and wine pairing is rather interesting.

The event cost us $32 each with the Passion card discount. It would have cost $35 each for non-Passion members.

There were performances too. The String Quartet Performance by Calypso was panned by Vinleon for their poor synergy and lack of technical fundamentals but the Spanish performance items, Zapateado de Sarasate and Sevillanas by a Spanish dance duo ended the event on a high note.

All in all, I am satisfied with the event, many thanks to Sze Huan and the WineInc@TpChangkat for organizing the event (:

Having organized events before, I know it is not easy, Sze Huan has put in a lot of effort into it. He would be looking into New World Wines for the next event, expect Chilean, Argentine wines etc.

WineInc at TpChangkat Facebook Group