We love Asian food. And we love wine. And we noticed that it’s quite hard to find a wine that goes really well with Asian food. The popular wine varieties just don’t work. Shiraz and Cab Sav either overpower the more delicate Asian flavours, or else their high tannic content leaves a metallic tanginess when combined with overtly spicy food. Chardonnay ends up tasting bitter. And Sauvignon Blanc can be too acidic and astringent.

In fact the only wines that tend to really match Asian food are obscure varietals, which are hard to find and either expensive or not very well made. The other problem is that people tend to share a variety of Asian dishes, some heavily spiced, some acidic, some sour and salty. A wine that matches one dish, may clash horribly with another.

So we set out to create a wine that was specially blended to match Asian food. We wanted something that would be quite luscious and fruity up front, both to enhance the delicately fragrant flavours of, for example, a chicken and lemon grass stir-fry and to counteract the heat of spicier dishes such as lamb madras, chilli pepper prawns or wasabi beef. And then we wanted a crisp finish, to cleanse the palate between mouthfuls of often wildly varying dishes.

Aja (we call it Asia) is the result. The perfect match for Asian food, Aja is a unique blend of aromatic grapes with a crisp citrus finish, to go with the fragrant, spicy flavours of Asian cuisine and provide the perfect accompaniment.