On November 8, the Sunday Morning Post carried a report noting two impressive achievements for Hong Kong's rapidly growing wine industry.
First came the announcement by London-based Lunzer Wine Investments that it intended to open its first office in Hong Kong by March next year, a shrewd move, the report agreed, 'as the swelling army of Asian millionaires develops a taste for wine investing'.
Later, the same article backed up Lunzer's vote of confidence in Hong Kong as a regional 'wine hub' by citing Sotheby's decision this year to bring two wine auctions to Hong Kong for the first time. The sales, according to Sotheby's, had generated higher values in Hong Kong than equivalent auctions in either London or New York.
A third milestone, perhaps the most telling from a long-term perspective, will be reached next month when the University of Hong Kong's School of Professional and Continuing Education opens its inaugural Wine MBA.
Run in conjunction with France's Bordeaux Management School (BeM), the new Wine MBA's mandate, according to programme director Paul Leung, is to provide essential specialist business skills for local managers to enable them to develop careers to senior level in the wine industry.
'Our Wine MBA was prompted directly by the government's decision to promote wine as an opportunity sector in Hong Kong,' he explained. 'We were involved in preparing the memorandum of understanding between our government and the French when the initiative started, and one of the principles in it was the development of specialist education for the industry here in Hong Kong.'
