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Actually, everything is clear: "Only a beverage derived from fruits of the vine may bear the trade description wine (without further explanation)" And yet there are many special wines that are not allowed to be wines according to this definition and yet are almost always called "wine".

For us, the most familiar is probably cider, in China I got to know rice wine and now in Cambodia palm wine. It is even Cambodia's "unofficial" national drink and is called "wine" as a matter of course, fruit wine to be precise. In Vietnam - where vines grow - it is mainly the mulberries that "get into" the wine. And in most cases, this is not even written on the bottle or only in the small print. Let's stay with the palm wine for a moment. It is not sweet, as one might suspect, more like - in the nose - a French Vermouth (Noilly Prat), but it is much lighter, even more cheerful, pleasantly spicy in taste, slightly bitter-fruity, figs come to mind, even dates, peanuts - but all that only in traces - integrated into a slightly wormwood-like juice that is less pronounced than most aperitifs and has only eleven percent alcohol by volume. Of course, there is also the distilled palm wine, usually distilled several times, the arrack (in a variety of ways, from palm wine or fermented rice mash), but it tastes quite different.

Palm wine is also flavoured with natural fruits. The wine described - an aperitif glass stands next to me to taste the previously unknown drink again from time to time - is the "original", so that's how palm wine tastes. There is also the same wine with ginger (called Ginger) and with pineapple. But I stick to the "original", which is offered on the streets of Cambodia in bamboo containers.

Palm wine (in bamboo containers) is sold on the street (Photo: P. Züllig)

Unfortunately, I had too little time to study the Khmer "wine scene" in detail. It is even said - but no one could say for sure - that since a few years there are also vines in Cambodia from which wine is made. But what there is for sure: Wine merchants and producers in Cambodia, but they do not produce here. In Phnom Penh, there are now even wine bars with a respectable selection of wines (from France, Australia and Chile).

In Vietnam, however, there is "real" local wine, which I have drunk several times now. For the first time without suspecting that it still contains mulberries. Yesterday I compared two wines, one with and one without mulberries. To say it in advance: The "real" wine was really better. But first things first. I was warned in several forums: "When buying Da Lat wine, make sure that the label says 'export'. Otherwise, the contents of the bottle are a mixture of grape and fruit wine." I paid attention to this and bought an export wine, Vang Dàlat. But I found the Vang Dàlat "Superior" yesterday, in which I thought fruit juices, far better than the pure export wine. Somehow I was unsure, could it be? Today the surprise, in the small text (spotted with a magnifying glass) it says: "Blended from Cardinal grapes and Dalat's Mulberry fruits."

Vang Dàlat wines - with and without mulberries (Photo: P. Züllig)

So it is! The "pure wine" is better - at least for my taste pattern - than the wine enriched with mulberries (the ratio is unfortunately not known). It is also clearly darker, stronger, more aromatic. Actually more like a wine from the "old wine world". Without knowing the origin, I would describe it as a pleasant table wine, no pronounced character, but quite pleasant to drink. It lacks a little of the finish, the persistence. It evaporates quickly, leaving behind the idea of exoticism - a wine from Vietnam that is quite drinkable, who would have thought it. In the forums I consulted before the trip, there was a lot of "oracle": "...I would leave out the Da Lat wine. There is not a single grape in it. It is made from mulberries." This, I have now learned, is only half the truth.

So now for the mulberry wine. I think it is what I also drank in Vietnam, but there mixed with Shiraz. In the meantime, I have switched from palm wine to Vang Dàlat, even got out the tester glass of "les impitoyables", and I am now sniffing, sniffing... The aromas are not so clear, at least not so familiar to me. Raspberry, my first impression, so slightly sweet, especially on the nose. On the palate, the sweetness is completely cancelled out by a somewhat corrosive acidity, there are sour cherries, cranberries, some cinnamon. The whole thing is extremely exciting because it is unusual.

Sugar palms% from which the juice is extracted. The trunk is scratched open% and the sap flows out. (Photo: P. Züllig)

Gradually I understand. This is not about wine styles, wine technology or even European wine tradition. It is true that the French introduced an elite wine culture before 1954, but wine was hardly affordable for the Vietnamese until a good ten years ago. Now, however, something like a wine culture of their own is emerging. It is not about refined flavours, not about imitating French wines. It is about the needs and tastes of the Vietnamese. They don't seem to care whether table grapes or mulberries are made into wine. They are - so they say - used to stronger alcoholic drinks: rice liquor, whisky, vodka and homemade liqueurs. Vietnamese wines do not have to meet international standards. For the time being, wine is produced mainly for the Vietnamese.

Of course, there is also an attempt at export wines. The Thanhhung Group, producer of my two wines - yesterday's leftover bottles are soon emptied by now - proudly proclaim on their website (loosely translated): "When it comes to wine in Vietnam today, it comes from Vang Dàlat, the country's oldest wine brand, produced in Dalat, in a landscape where tourists find recreation again today, and the birth of Vietnamese wine took place." Today, the wine is exported to some countries in Asia: Japan, Korea, China, Malaysia, Cambodia...

Advertisement for a wine bar in Hanoi (Photo: P. Züllig)

Let's rummage through the blog world again. There I read, noted by a German living in Vietnam: "I entertain my guests with Da Lat wines. Our favourite is the Da Lat Wine Export, the bottle for VND 49,000 (just under 2 euros). The mulberries give the wine that special something!!?"

Sincerely
Yours/Yours

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