Jakarta's first wine cellar keeps visitors' spirits high<\/p>\n
By Mehru Jaffer<\/p>\n
JAKARTA (JP): \"Here with a loaf of Bread beneath the Bough, A
\nFlask of Wine, a book of Verse and Thou Beside me singing in the
\nWilderness, And Wilderness is Paradise now ...,\" wrote Omar
\nKhayyam, a Persian astronomer and poet in the 12th century. And
\nit has taken almost 800 years to finally open that flask here and
\nturn Jakarta into the kind of paradise talked about by the poet.<\/p>\n
For most of the guests who visited the city's first wine
\ncellar that opened on Jan. 21, amid the tinkling of a thousand
\nand one glasses and the twinkling of double that many eyes, it is
\na dream come true.<\/p>\n
Some of the crowd of fashion designers, models, management
\nexperts and diplomats said they had to wait for almost half their
\nlife to realize their dream.<\/p>\n
TL Lie, one of the four owners of The Wine Cellar, learned to
\nlove the drink from his uncle, who is Dutch. \"He has a collection
\nof over 3,000 bottles at his home in Holland. I learned
\neverything about wine from him,\" says Lie, who studied civil
\nengineering in the Netherlands. When he returned home in 1986, he
\nfound that his life felt parched without wine.<\/p>\n
Soon he met John M. Read, one of the most ardent lovers of
\nwine who is seldom seen around town without a glass in his hand.
\nJohn came to Indonesia to work for Mobil Oil in the early 1980s
\nwithout realizing how \"dry\" this city was. Soon connoisseurs like
\nRead and Lie became part of the Jakarta Wines and Spirits Circle
\nthat has a membership of 200 people today.<\/p>\n
With decades spent in tasting wine, Read is the consultant-in-
\nchief to The Wine Cellar. His collection of books on wine numbers
\nnearly 250, some of which are opened to the appropriate page and
\ndisplayed at the Cellar.<\/p>\n
Read is also the person to seek out if one has discovered wine
\nrecently and is still unsure about what to do with a bottle in
\nhand. He gives lessons in wine culture and appreciation, from its
\nhistory to its proper consumption.<\/p>\n
\"The only hazard of having a love like this one is to make
\nsure that one never makes the mistake of getting drunk,\" he
\nwarns. Adding that the right wine sipped with the right food can
\nrarely be the cause of tipsy behavior.<\/p>\n
\"We meet regularly to dine, and to wine and to talk about our
\nfavorite flavored bottle,\" explains Harry Darsono, the flamboyant
\nfashion designer and musician who played the piano all night long
\nat the inaugural. Looking like a freshly plucked rose in a pink
\noutfit, Deby Susanti Vinski, president director of Perfect Model,
\nthe international agency and career center, came to the
\novercrowded Cellar to give moral support to her numerous friends
\nfrom the Circle.<\/p>\n
On the same evening, BS Kubheka, the ambassador of South
\nAfrica, decided to give French wine a try for a change. \"But when
\nI serve wine at home it is always from my country,\" he confided
\nto The Jakarta Post.<\/p>\n
Tucked away underground in the lower lobby of the Kempinski
\nHotel on Jl. Sudirman, The Wine Cellar is considered by
\nconnoisseurs to be a virtual treasure house of wine from around
\nthe world. Out of some 20 countries producing wine in the world
\ntoday, ten are represented here from, among others, France, Italy
\nand Australia.<\/p>\n
Pretty Priyanti Djoehana, the marketing coordinator for the
\npromotion board of French Food and Beverages, is quite pleased at
\nthe variety of French wines stocked at the cellar. \"Although the
\nnumber of people who crave wine remains very small in Jakarta, it
\nis still important to have a place in the city where one is able
\nto pick up a good wine without paying through one's nose,\" she
\nsaid.<\/p>\n
Till recently it was just possible to juggle around with about
\n20 different labels. Now the choice is almost between 175
\ndifferent varieties. As wine culture spreads around the city,
\nmore and more people are tempted to snuggle up to the daughter of
\ngrapes. Nanny Widjaja, who is a sleeping partner at the Cellar,
\nheld her first glass of wine just two years ago.<\/p>\n
As the owner of a steel contracting company, she has come to
\nlook forward to her daily glass of red wine at the end of each
\nexhausting day. She does not feel good that Muslims should not
\ndrink wine. She quotes experts who believe that a moderate amount
\nof wine is even good for the health.<\/p>\n
According to researchers in Denmark, people who drink wine
\nconsider themselves healthier. The study was based on findings
\nthat to believe oneself to be healthy leads to a reduced chance
\nof dying from heart disease. It is also found that mortality is
\nlower among wine drinkers than among drinkers of beer and
\nspirits.<\/p>\n
Scientists at the Human Institute in the University of Milan
\nfeel that a glass and a half of wine a day could help improve the
\nlittle gray cells and stop the progression of brain disorders. A
\nchemical produced by wine may help a brain enzyme to function by
\nup to seven fold.<\/p>\n
Wine has been wedded to man for more than 4000 years say
\nancient texts. The Egyptians refer to the use of grapes for wine-
\nmaking as far back as 2500 BC. The Greeks and the Romans drank
\nwine and following the voyage of Columbus the grape culture was
\ntransported from the old world of Europe to the new worlds of
\nMexico, South Africa, South America, Australia and California.
\nAnd now it is the turn of people here to please themselves even
\nif drinking wine may sometimes not make them very pleasing to
\nothers.<\/p>",
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