Michael Hadley is a young and energetic American who left the financial markets of the US to pursue his enjoyment of wine and food in Singapore, where he began by establishing one of its better restaurants, Michaelangelo’s. Since then he’s also opened two other restaurants in Holland Village, Sistina’s Pizzeria and Original Sin. He also established a wine importing/wholesale and retailing business, Vinifera, and late last year launched his biggest project yet, a simply astonishing restaurant near the Singapore Indoor Sports Centre called 8 on the Bay. Hadley imports wine from all over the world except France, and with his combination of restaurants, retail outlet and wholesale business, is one of the key importers of Australian wine into Singapore. He is also one of the larger buyers on the Australian wine auction market. Is Australian wine still the flavour of the month in Singapore? Yes it is, but the buzz has started to wear off. It’s been steadily growing for the past six years, but Italian wine is the hottest thing here now. They’ve had four great vintages in a row and the prices haven’t increased from what they were eight years ago. Is there an issue with increasing prices of Australian wine? The Australian dollar has fallen by about 25% against the Singapore dollar, so a lot of wholesalers have been able to hold their prices. But some of the newer labels are getting very expensive. What Australian wines are available in Singapore? You can virtually get any wine from Australia here, and it’s been that was for about two years. But while collectors should be able to get their two bottles or so of any wine, quantity is the issue. Most of the top wines, like Jim Barry’s The Armagh, are on limited allocation and most wines like that go straight to restaurants and top retail stores. Most importers are reasonably good at making sure their wine goes to the trade, however not all companies operate in that fashion. Most Australian companies would prefer a sole distributor in Singapore, but then many insist that you take wines of theirs without much profile. Some McLaren Vale vineyards, for instance, expect us to sell their chardonnay and sauvignon blanc, although you can’t give them away here. Other suppliers impose conditions on a sale. For instance, if we wanted to buy Henschke’s new red releases, we could only do it one way. We’d get four bottles of Henschke’s Hill of Grace, eight bottles of Keyneton Estate, a dozen bottles of Cyril Henschke Cabernet Sauvignon and 18 bottles of Mount Edelstone, but we’d also have to take 6 bottles of 1989 Croft Chardonnay (?!), a dozen 1991 Louis Semillon (??!), a dozen Cranes Eden Valley Chardonnay and three dozen of Tilly’s Dry White. Plus six bottles of a Noble Riesling. The same goes with a top small vineyard in Coonawarra; to get their premium red we’d have to buy a stack of their cheaper wines in future, irrespective of the large amounts we’ve bought in the past. We don’t have the same conditions imposed on us by the top Californian vineyards we buy from. Who drinks Australian wine in Singapore? Everyone. Because for at least 15-20 years, the Rosemounts, Lindemans and Wolf Blass have had a place on the supermarket shelves here. What they have been fighting is their perceived place in the market. Because of things like the $11 duty on every bottle of wine here, the price points here are quite different to Australia. Wines sell between $13 and $28 in the supermarkets, and you won’t find them in the premium stores for under $30. Singapore has historically been a Francophilic market and it’s still all about face and image. So some very good Australian wines don’t get the positioning they deserve, because they’re not that expensive. To give you an idea of the prices here, a bottle of Penfolds Bin 389 will fetch over $100 per bottle in a private restaurant and over $130 in a hotel restaurant. A bottle of Cloudy Bay in the Hilton costs $115! What is the Australian wine industry doing right in Singapore? As a merchant and a restaurateur I’m very well supported by the wineries. Brian Lynn and Jim Brand are joining us shortly for a Coonawarra Barrel Auction tasting, and we tend to get a lot of exposure to Australian winemakers here. Sue Hodder (Wynns) was up here for a week last year. What could Australia be doing better? The Australian Trade Commission’s budget in Singapore for promoting Australian wine is is $30,000. The French spend a million a year. Australia could do more, but some of the state agricultural associations and groups like the Margaret River Winemakers Association are pretty progressive. Singapore may only have 3.6 million people, but it’s a hub for banking, shipping and air travel, with an abnormally high level of international travellers coming through. What are the strengths of Australian wine in Singapore? The conciseness of the labelling, and the fact that the names are easy to say forAsians grappling with the English language. People can remember names like Highbank, Lake’s Folly and Cape Mentelle, whereas the French names and their labelling system are their greatest liability. Taste-wise, 95% of Australian wines for sale in Singapore are approachable and don’t need cellaring to enjoy, although many would benefit from proper cellaring. You can take them off the shelves and open them. What do you think about the influence of Robert Parker on Australian wine? If Parker rates a wine highly, over here you want the wine. One of his attributes is the 100 point scale, which is easy to understand in Asia. Nobody in Asia ranks anything out of 20. I think his ratings have definitely affected the bolder shirazes, especially in South Australia and especially in McLaren Vale, the Barossa, Coonawarra and Langhorne Creek. He hasn’t influenced cabernets as much, because even he knows that if you overcook a cabernet it’s tough to find any merit in it.
