The 4 th edition of Wine for Asia 2006, the International Wine and Spirits Exhibition for the Asian market, concluded successfully on 4 th November. The Show was better attended this year and the quality of the visitors got an upgrade too. The entrance for trade professionals and the Press, for the first two days was more strictly enforced this year.

As expected, participation was more from Australia and New Zealand though there was good participation from Italy, Chile, France and Argentina. In all 19 countries participated with about 360 exhibitors taking part in the Show. Indian producers, who took part for the first time last year with the efforts of Indian Wine Academy were present again, though the protagonists had changed. Champagne Vintage and Sula from last year were missed. 'We accomplished our mission last year' informed Adrian Pinto, the marketing manager of Sula. According to Santosh Verma, the marketing head honcho of Indage, 'there was a clash of dates and so we are skipping it this year'. Vinsura whom we had persuaded to take part last year had cancelled out at the last minute due to shortage of manpower. It was nice to see them board the bus this year. It appears wherever Sula leads, Vinsura follows, benefiting from their experience. Sigma Wines was the other participant. Both claim to have had a successful Show.

There was a special emphasis on the seminars and conferences this year. Mohit Balachandran of Olive Delhi, a part of 28 -member group organised by Indian Wine Academy last year had participated on his own including the 2-day certificate course before the Show ( normally costing SGD 600). He is absolutely ecstatic about the experience. This, despite having a freaky fall where his legs were non-functional for weeks. Naresh Uttamchandani of Sovereign Impex, who was also a part of the group last year and was a bit lukewarm to the idea of going to the Show initially came back duly impressed. ' For one thing, the crowd was more professional this year though he numbers did not seem to be more than 6000 for the whole show. But the seminars and conferences were simply fantastic. I could not pull myself away from them'. The fact that last year they had given 4-nights free hotel stay compared to only 2 nights this year did not deter him. He just cut short his visit to 2 days.

The experience to interact with James Halliday, the famous wine writer and critic from Australia was unprecedented with the wine world's most favourite topic after corks, ' Old World vs. New World'.

Indian Wine Academy endorses and supports the Show, officially. Last year, apart from taking the delegation they had also organised the Indian Flag at the Show where for the first time ever, India had taken part in a wine show abroad under the Indian umbrella. We are surely going to see better participation from the producers in this show in future. Unfortunately, due to previous commitments we decided to pass the opportunity of organising the group though many were guided and encouraged to do online registrations.