As we put bubbly in the ice bucket and stock up our party poppers, we're wondering what the noisemakers will be next year.
We've seen so much enthusiasm for Barolo, in particular, it's hard to imagine that Italy won't put its best foot forward next year.
With China planting more vines in ever more promising sites, it's starting to bear fruit (Li Demei's cabernet sauvignon blend outshone Bordeaux in this year's Decanter World Wine Awards). The world is curious: The Wine Advocate said it would be reviewing Asian wines and is moving to Singapore.
With wines from England, Georgia, Turkey, Hungary and Brazil emerging, the adventurous Hong Kong wine lover is finally getting on board with exotic tipples.
White wine saw some encouraging restaurant sales in Hong Kong this year. Our colleagues in hospitality tell us that collectors who BYOB La Tache and the like will often order a token white from the restaurant list instead of paying corkage, which skews the figures. That said, 2012 has been a genuine coup for riesling, with events such as the Summer of Riesling and Riesling Week by the Miramar group enjoying great success.
Having spent the latter half of 2012 developing a wine sales curriculum for more than 7,000 global sales staff, we're curious to see how the investment pays off. We know this much: with the array of outlets popping up across the Asia-Pacific, nobody can afford to have sales staff who don't know their eiswein from their elbow.