Wine Without Pretension: A Sommelier's Case for Curiosity

We sat down with one of our sommelier partners over a glass of something from the Jura that neither of us could pronounce properly. His thesis was simple: Singapore's wine culture is at an inflection point, and the people driving it forward aren't wine snobs. They're curious professionals who are tired of defaulting to the same Burgundy at every dinner.

Here's the conversation, lightly edited for clarity.

On Singapore's Wine Moment

"Five years ago, the wine scene in Singapore was dominated by two extremes. You had the serious collectors who could talk about Bordeaux vintages for hours, and you had everyone else who ordered whatever the sommelier recommended because they didn't want to look uninformed. There was very little in between.

"Now there's this emerging middle. Professionals in their thirties and forties who are genuinely curious about wine, who've travelled, who've eaten well, and who want to understand what they're drinking without being lectured. They don't care about scores. They care about the story."

On Removing the Intimidation

"The biggest barrier to wine appreciation isn't knowledge. It's the fear of being judged. People are terrified of ordering the wrong wine, of pronouncing something incorrectly, of revealing that they don't know the difference between a Nebbiolo and a Sangiovese.

"My job at these Skyline Reserve tastings isn't to educate. It's to give permission. Permission to ask obvious questions. Permission to say 'I don't like this one' even if it's a very expensive bottle. Permission to be a beginner with no shame.

"Once you remove the intimidation, people's palates develop incredibly quickly. Most professionals have naturally good taste. They just need someone to tell them it's okay to trust it."

On What to Drink Right Now

"If I could give one piece of advice to someone who wants to explore wine more seriously, it would be this: stop drinking the same thing. Every time you order wine, try something you've never had before. You'll have some bad glasses. But you'll also discover regions and grapes that surprise you.

"Right now in Singapore, I'd point people towards wines from the Jura, from Alto Adige in northern Italy, from the Swartland in South Africa, and from the Yarra Valley in Australia. These are regions producing extraordinary wines at prices that won't make your eyes water. And they're interesting. Every bottle tells a story about a specific place and a specific person who made it.

"Forget about Burgundy for now. You can come back to it later. Start with the edges of the wine world, where the energy is."

On Wine and Professional Culture

"There's a reason wine works so well as a social lubricant for professionals. It's not just the alcohol. It's that wine gives people something to talk about that isn't work. It creates a shared experience. Everyone at the table is tasting the same thing, having a slightly different reaction, and those differences become conversation.

"I've watched tables of strangers bond over wine faster than over almost any other medium. There's something about the vulnerability of tasting. You're admitting that you have preferences, that you have opinions, that some things give you pleasure and others don't. That's intimate. And it creates a kind of trust that small talk never does."

On the Future

"Singapore is going to become one of Asia's most important wine markets. Not because of the collectors, though they'll always be here. Because of the curious. The professionals who treat wine the way they treat everything else in their lives: with intention, with openness, and without pretension.

"That's the culture we're building at these tastings. Not wine snobbery. Wine curiosity. Come as you are. Taste with an open mind. Leave knowing something you didn't before.

"And if you can't pronounce it, that's fine. Neither can I, half the time."