On Thursday 22nd September, guests in Phnom Penh played it cool at a special dinner hosted by Chef Luu Meng and Malis’ General Manager par excellence, Loumpheany Preap. The dinner was a chance to say thank you to some of our friends and partners and also to showcase the wines of one of our leading suppliers, Warehouse. Michael Travostino kindly presented a selection of wines from the house of M. Chapoutier, a winery of the Rhone region highly renowned for its Hermitage wines especially. 

Aside from the quality of their wines, Chapoutier are also known for producing their vintages according to biodynamic principles, an increasingly popular practice that takes a more holistic approach to wine production. According to the strict biodynamic principles, the farm and its produce are viewed as a cohesive, interconnected, ‘living’ system, and so organic, ethical and spiritual principles are integrated into their production. The method has been acclaimed for producing wines that are stronger, clearer and more floral than their traditionally produced counterparts — though questions still remain as to how that happens. 

For special wines, we needed a special menu, and so Chef Luu Hong created a delicious range of canapés, a Kep flower crab salad with roasted eggplant, chicken from Angkor with Prahok, Black Angus rib eye steak coated in Chef’s special spices (he still won’t tell us what’s in it), all rounded off with Malis special mousse with durian delight. 

Each dish was paired with its own wine, and so we enjoyed an honest, spicy La Ciboise from Luberon with the canapés, a fresh and juicy Belleruche from the Côtes du Rhône with the crab salad, one of Chapoutier’s highly acclaimed Crozes Hermitages, Les Meysonniers, and a spectacular Chateau-neuf-du-Pape, La Bernadine, to accompany our main courses. Dessert was topped off with a delightful Muscat de Beaumes de Venise.  

If you weren’t able to make it, we sincerely hope to see you at our next dinner.