Wine & Gourmet Taipei is Taiwan’s only professional show that covers the whole wine supply chain, including local and international wine agents, wineries, professional wine cellars, and high-quality accessories. WGT also features a wide range of gourmets and master seminars. This is Taiwan’s sole professional major sourcing site, allowing interaction between wine importers, industry-related parties, professional buyers, and consumers.
WGT is an annual exhibition in Taipei, and this year it ran between May 26-29, and Eating in Taipei was lucky to be invited as one of the shows Media sponsors. A big shout out goes to those of you who participated in our ticket giveaways, as we look to expand sponsorship for events like this further in the coming years across Taipei and Taiwan. Another big shout out goes to KAIGO, who organized the event. Since its establishment, KAIGO has been facilitating Taiwan’s export-orientated industries to enter the international market through participating exhibitions worldwide. To create business values for customers, KAIGO conceptualized the exhibition line to maximize opportunity in bringing together the demand and supply side of the market.
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Wine & Gourmet Taipei 2023 was held in the Taipei World Trade Center Hall 1. We went on Saturday, with the event officially starting on Friday. There were a lot of people inside the event, and a buzz in the air, with the faint sound of glasses clinking in the background. Truth be told, I was drooling at the thought of all the wine I was about to consume…
As Media sponsors for the event, we were blessed with having the opportunity to get our hands on the VIP tickets. This enabled us to get a wine glass and some other little goodies along the way, which will be shared later in the post. I had my glass, and I was ready to embark!
What surprised me a lot about this event was the amount of sake and plum wine vendors. I went around and tasted a lot of the different sake, and really enjoyed the crispness of the ice cold drink during this hot day. What I really liked was the Taiwanese rice wine drink that you can see top left, where the rice is prepared using aboriginal wine making methods, and fermented over time to allow all of the natural flavours to come out. I couldn’t quite believe it when they told us that no water was added, meaning that all of the liquid was a by-product of the incredible fermentation process.
This is one of the best things about an event such as Wine & Gourmet Taipei, in that you can try lots of drinks that you wouldn’t ordinarily try. The variety was great, and I was already getting my fill!
The VIP Section at Wine & Gourmet Taipei
As previously said, with the VIP card came a few little added extras, such as the ability to take a seat and relax in the VIP section, which happened to be one of the only places to sit down in the whole event. Upon arriving, we were presented with these ridiculously strong alcohol filled chocolates in little boxes, bottles of water (thankfully), and beer (similarly, thankfully!). There were some chips and some other little nut snacks to eat, which gave us time to relax and take a look at what we had originally thought were drinks coasters, but later found out that they were wine pourers, provided with the VIP tickets at WGT.
Wine at WGT
As we continued to explore the event, we drank some incredible Israeli wine. This was my first taste of wine from Israel, and I was definitely impressed. There existed this depth of flavour and light sweetness that gave way to crisp summery flavours. I proceeded to drink some crisp and sweet Riesling, some deep red Spanish Rioja, and some incredible Rosé wine that completely caught me off guard.
For me, Rosé wine comes with a stigma – cheap, nasty, don’t ever drink it.
That stigma was completely blown away with WGT, upon trying that Helmut Lang Pinot Noir Rosé wine at the top left of that picture gallery above – delicious!
The best wine I had at WGT
I loved this wine. Bigottiere Savennieres,, 2019, from the Loire Valley, France. Shock, the French wine was my favourite this weekend. The clean freshness of this wine at Wine gourmet Taipei was just delightful, with some delicious apricot notes and some light honey flavours coming through. It wasn’t too sweet, but is definitely a wine best served chilled on a summer day. This is a must buy if you see it in a shop! In fact, I think it would go incredibly well with either the seafood pasta at L’Idiot or the Charcuterie plate at Pasta & Co.
Beer
It would have felt rude to be to come to a kind of event like this, and snub the beer. So, I duly obliged by trying each beer on offer… I’ll be honest, I have had these beers before, and was a regular Duvel drinker in the UK before moving to Taiwan. I really like these Belgian beers for the wheaty freshness that they bring. Beer like Duvel and La Chouffe should most definitely be bought whenever you see them, as they are just great Belgian classics.
Other drinks at Wine & Gourmet Taipei
There was a modest selection of whisky booths at Wine & Gourmet Taipei. I visited the Spey booth. I have drank my fair share of Scottish Highland whisky throughout my life and in all honesty, Spey is not my favourite of the Scottish Single Malts out there, but I was willing to give it a go here. After making my way through their selection here, it still doesn’t go down as one of my favourites, but I was pleasantly surprised by the depth of flavour in their younger whisky, and would order it if there weren’t some of my favourites such as the Ardbeg Uigeadail or the Oban 14 year old on offer.
Also of note was the stall selling the Bellini – a peach flavoured alcoholic fizz. It was very refreshing, but quite sweet. What I liked about this was that the liquid was slightly more thick, with visible peach pulp up in there. It made it feel legitimately peachy, and was nicely refreshing.
Perhaps somewhat not the right season for the German Gluhwein, but it still deserves a feature for its deliciously spicy notes on top of the red wine. Buy a couple of bottles and save them for Christmas, and you might be good.
Food at Wine & Gourmet Taipei
With gourmet in the name, there were definitely some gourmet options available for each level of hunger. If you were slightly less hungry, then go for some of the jerky sticks or the chicken feet. If you were moderately hungry, then the nachos were a good shout. Or if you wanted a little bit more then the Wagyu beef or the Angus were what you would have gone for. All finished off with some mini individual cheesecakes, of course!
Once again, a big thank you goes out to KAIGO for setting up and organizing Wine & Gourmet Taipei and for inviting us to be part of the Media Sponsorship team this year. We really enjoyed the event, and feel honored to be a part of the history of this event. Long may this continue!
The bottom line
Wine & Gourmet Taipei is an annual event that showcases some of the best wine, sake, beer, and food from around the world, all under one roof. It’s a great place to go and try new drinks and food that you might not ordinarily be able to find out there in Taipei.
※Please do not drink if you’re a minor. Please do not drink and drive. Over-drinking is bad for your health.
※ This article is a collaborative article with Wine & Gourmet Taipei.