A marketing executive inspects different brands of wine at a tasting ceremony in Yangon last month.

WINE is increasingly finding a place on Myanmar dining tables, according to local wine experts, as people here discover the lifestyle and health benefits of a glass of vino.

Ms Manjit Kaur, wine consultant for local supermarket chain City Mart, said local demand has encouraged supermarket chains to import wine and also helped to support an international-standard local producer, Aythaya Wine.

“Wine culture is booming in Myanmar and we can now see imported wines available in shopping centres and supermarkets around Yangon. City Mart has introduced many different varieties of wine, especially from Australia. According to our customer feedback, Myanmar people enjoy drinking wine, particularly red wine,” Ms Manjit said.

She said wine is also attractive to those who want to drink alcohol but avoid high alcohol by volume (ABV) beverages like whisky and rum.

“Though it is alcoholic, the percentage of alcohol in wine is often less than 15 percent,” while most liquors have an ABV of about 40pc. Beer has a lower ABV, about 5-8pc.

Ms Manjit also said there are health benefits to drinking wine and it can help to improve blood circulation and lower cholesterol.

She said though that, at this stage, local demand is largely limited to good quality entry-level examples.

This means special vintage wines – produced to exhibit strong individual charac-teristics and serve as the flagship line of the producer – are unlikely to be seen on the shelves of local retailers.

Ms Manjit said these special vintages are very expensive and not all wineries are capable of producing them. Chateau Margaux and Chateau Yquem are examples of famous vintages wines that can cost thousands of dollars per bottle.

“These vintage wines can’t be bought in Myanmar because the wineries produce only a limited stock for their regular customers, who are often rich businesspeople and celebrities. But here we have very good imported entry-level wines.

“We also have wine produced here in Myanmar, which is often very good quality, particularly Aythaya Wine. Of course, the taste is different from wine produced in France, Italy or Australia because of the different geographical situation.”

Aythaya Wine is Myanm-ar’s most famous wine produc-er. The Myanmar Vineyard Management Company was founded in 1999 and the company’s vineyard is located at Aythaya in Shan State, close to Taunggyi and about 25 kilometres from Inle Lake.

The company has produced the country’s first high quality grape wines, under the Aythaya and Kanbosa brand names. Bert Morsbach, managing director of Myanmar Vineyard Management Company, which operates the Aythaya vineyard, said demand for the local product was solid following “booming” sales in 2006 and 2007.

We are quite confident that wine consumption will conti-nue to growth in Myanmar as it did in the past years, and as it has done all over Asia,” he said. “We believe and hope that by the end of the year people will be less nervous and they will have more free income to spend on the nice things in life again.

“Nobody knows the exact market size for wine in Myanmar as it is in its early stage of development. If it continues to grow as it did from 2005-2007 we can assume that there is a market of at least 500,000 bottles per annum for the years to come.”