Indonesia uncorked: A toast to the nation’s growing wine scene

May 17, 2024

“Pick something easy, like a glass of prosecco, white wine, or a nice rosé. Have a good and easy chat with friends, and just chill. Overseas, this is commonplace since you have a shorter work day. After a hectic work week, it’s a nice way to reward and refresh yourself,” said Pritha.

So much about wine isn’t just about the buzz. Drinking wine is an event–a way to travel the world through flavors, a drink worthy of diligent study. There’s something sophisticated, smart and cultured about those who have mastered the art of savoring wine properly. Perhaps, then, it’s not a coincidence that wine drinkers in Indonesia used to be those who are well-traveled.

“These travelers saw how wine is an everyday drink in other countries. When they come back to Indonesia, they incorporate wine into their habit,” said Pritha, who runs the Jakarta Wine Club Series and is the founder of Jakarta Wine Festival. “Now, even the younger generation wants to participate in wine-drinking culture even though they have not traveled much.”

More wine bars are popping up in Jakarta. Tasting rooms boast impressive wine lists and patrons can expect knowledgeable bartenders to guide them through their preferences without making them feel intimidated.

“Wine is typically a part of a formal occasion, where it’s drunk with a full meal. That’s why you find red wines to be more popular,” said Juan Diaz, CEO of Indowines and Plaga.

It’s different compared with Bali where wine is served at almost every restaurant, even a small outdoor shack, drunk with lunch or dinner on a Wednesday. The wine-drinking scene is much more “easy-going” in Bali, with people sipping on “sauvignon blanc, white wines, rosé at the beach or on terraces with light foods and appetizers,” said Juan.

Read also: Sip and Savor: Where to wine down in Jakarta

Balinese wine trampoline

That’s not the only thing different about the wine scene in Bali, though. On the tourist island, local wines are emerging to be the wine of choice for curious learners, “a good trampoline to start drinking more serious wine,” said Juan.

Hatten Wines, known as Bali’s original winery, began producing rosé made from a local grape variety back in 1994. Other brands like Sababay, Isola and Plaga started their wineries in Bali in the early 2010s.

“We really should have called it Balinese wine, not Indonesian wine, because the only area where we can produce wine in Indonesia is Bali,” said Pritha. Bali does not just provide easy access to the Indonesian market, as well as the foreign and domestic tourists, it also has relatively lax regulations related to wine production.

The growing demand for Balinese wine is apparent. “Many tourists that come to Bali, they want to try what is locally produced,” said Juan.

Nowadays, many local brands have reached a point that they are, quality-wise, almost indistinguishable from imported wine.

Pritha often presents local wines and entry-level imported wines at blind tasting events, “and people will say: ‘Ohh this is great! It must be from Australia or the US. Then, we reveal the bottle, and there you go, it’s from Bali,” said Pritha.

“So it’s just the perception of local wine that is still negative, that it doesn’t taste as good and gives people a headache. But it’s actually better to buy local wine rather than imported entry-level wine because they cost the same, but you will have a better standard with local wine.”

But what is a local wine exactly? For tropical countries like Indonesia, bananas and papaya trees may grow in the wild, but vineyards are a rare sight.

“The best wines typically come from a certain latitude. It needs to have four seasons–hot summers, cold winters–to create the complexities in the wine. When you don’t have that, it’s very difficult to produce wine,” said Juan. “Serious wine regions also have vitis vinifera, a type of grape that can produce wine.” Its varieties include cabernet sauvignon and chardonnay.

Grapes that grow in the tropics are generally table grapes, the ones we consume directly, with Alphonse Lavallée being the table grape found in various regions from France to Indonesia. In the universe of wine, this common black grape is not the most ideal fruit to make wine with, but for local wine producers, it was the starting point for their burgeoning business.

“We used Alphonse Lavallée the first time we made wine. We bought the grapes from local farmers,” said Ida Bagus Rai Budarsa, CEO and founder of Hatten Wines. “Of course, we are not satisfied just selling one type of grape and we also want better quality grapes.”

But producing high-quality wine means starting with wine-grade quality grapes. Unfortunately in the Indonesian tropics, it would take all the right elements to fall at the right place and the right time to grow wine grapes, which makes “production more random and difficult,” said Plaga’s Juan.

Since Indonesia doesn’t have the right climate to grow grapes, “most producers typically buy frozen grapes or grape juice from Chile and Australia, produce it here, bottle it, then sell it,” said Pritha.

Plaga, launched in 2013, doesn’t shy away from the fact that it uses premium imported grapes. Offering “wines from the world”, Plaga brings in grape juices from Chile, Argentine, Italy and more to its facility in north Bali. There, ceiling-high fermentation towers work their magic, turning sugars into alcohol. Flavors generated will depend on factors such as the type of yeast used or the fermentation temperature.

Some producers also blend different origins of grapes to reach the desired flavor and price point. For Balinese producers, importing premium grapes is still inevitable, an important addition while local winemakers work closely with farmers to improve the quality of local grapes.

Read also: In Good Taste: Jakarta’s passion for the red, white and rosé

Cracking the grape code

Though wines produced from locally grown grapes haven’t gained as much appreciation as the imported counterparts, Hatten’s Gus Rai believes that he has slowly cracked the code to grow high-quality wine grapes on the tropical island.

“Generally speaking, grapes can grow anywhere. We just need to find the correct varieties that suit the climate,” said Gus Rai. “You need to consider the soil, the amount of sunlight, the weather, even the pruning technique.”

The year-long and constant sun exposure, for instance, can allow up to three harvests a year, which is not enough time for the fruits to develop complex flavors. At the same time, the rainy season means wetter soil, causing flavors to be less concentrated and complex.

“Too much water may cause the fruit to be overripe,” he added. To avoid this, “we need to prune it in such a way so that it doesn’t bear fruit during the rainy season. We’ll then wait for the dry season to harvest it properly.”

Through decades of research, Gus Rai also finds that white grapes tend to grow better in the tropics. “Red grapes need long hours of sunlight to ripen. In the subtropical region, vineyards get sunlight for 16 hours, all the way until 8 p.m. In Indonesia, we only have 12 hours,” said Gus Rai. “On average, white grapes ripen faster with the amount of sunlight we have.”

Now, Hatten cultivates varieties such as muscat, chenin blanc and the red grape syrah in Buleleng, Bali, while also importing grapes from around the globe.

Bali is not alone in its quest to produce high-quality wine grown in the tropics. Other countries such as India and Thailand have also begun experimenting with locally grown varieties, contributing to the diversity of wine flavors in the world.

Wine from warmer regions, including Indonesia, tend to be “fruitier and heavier in alcohol. The flavors are more intense compared to those grown in the subtropics because it gets more sunlight,” said Pritha. A vineyard in the tropics can become a unique tourist destination in Bali, according to Pritha.

Meanwhile, other regions in Indonesia have catching up to do. Although wine grapes can technically grow in regions outside Bali, obtaining a production license is more difficult and the appetite for wine is negligible.

But this shouldn’t dilute our desire for some local wine explorations.

For this weekend, you might want to try a glass of local rosé with nasi goreng or white wine with a lightly seasoned fish. After all, “our local wine has improved a lot compared with a few years ago,” said Pritha.

Though Indonesian wine is still a nascent product, for both wine drinkers and producers, now is a good time to taste the flavors of the local terroir.

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