Pioneering winemaker finds early success

When a democratically elected Myanmar president takes office this week after decades of military rule, some will be toasting the historic moment with a beverage decidedly not paired with this tropical, Southeast Asian nation: surprisingly high-quality, locally produced wine.

They might pour themselves an Aythaya sauvignon blanc ("internationally competitive", says one wine critic), a Shiraz-based red ("marvelous improvement over initial vintages") or start off with a refreshing sparkling rose.

These all stem from Myanmar's first winery, a pioneering effort by German entrepreneur Bert Morsbach, who overcame both political minefields and viticulturally virgin terrain to find himself catering to a growing middle class and booming tourism, which together create more demand than he can currently satisfy. He doesn't even have enough left over for export.

Morsbach's Aythaya estate could be mistaken for a corner of Provence or California's wine country, in a verdant valley tucked into the Shan Hills of northeastern Myanmar, and at 1,300 meters probably the highest vineyard in Asia. Visitors sample its wines at his restaurant with panoramic sunset views over the gently undulating vineyard.

The harvests haven't come easily. A genial onetime mining engineer, Morsbach was among just a handful of individual foreign businessmen in the 1990s operating in a largely isolated country where a xenophobic military regime made the rules. One minister, he says, simply appropriated an earlier venture. And Morsbach had no experience in winemaking, never mind doing it under tropical conditions.

"It was full of obstacles, adverse conditions, but it was a chance to do something new. That was the challenge and it had a reasonable chance of success," said the 78-year-old Morsbach, whose resume includes building factories in the United States, advising the Laos government and introducing sailboarding to Asia.

Minuscule consumption

In the first year of full production, 2004, the estate managed just 20,000 bottles. This has soared to as many as 200,000 bottles in recent years, and Morsbach says he is about to open another plant with a 1-million-bottle capacity.

Wine consumption in Myanmar is minuscule, so, Morsbach exults, the potential in the country of 52 million is immense.

"We are still working on our first glass," said Hans-Eduard Leiendecker, Ayuthaya's head winemaker, referring to statistics showing that Burmese, per capita, drink just one-tenth of a glass of wine per year. Compare that to eight bottles of wine per year for Americans, 18 for Germans and 35 for the French.

Leiendecker grew up on a family vineyard in Germany's Moselle region and spent 24 years in the European wine business. Like Morsbach, he was looking for a new challenge and took a big pay cut to come to Myanmar.

"Today, there is still no real wine culture in Myanmar. It needs one generation. It takes time," he said.