The mystique of Red in wine

If you are web designer, you are taught to be aware about the significance of colours in your web pages. Colours are rich in symbolism and meaning in different cultures even if they do not make sense. You rarely hear of the bride wearing a black wedding dress because black is worn for mourning and reflects death, sorrow, the Devil or bad luck. So a black web background on a web page may not attract a lot of visitors from some cultures. What has colour got to do with wine you may well ask?

Describing colours is more complex than the taste of a rare vintage wine because the colour palette offers so many combinations, hues and shades. Fortunately wine is binary, it either Red (ok Rose) or White. Which wine do you think is more popular in Asia and why?

Red has special meaning to most of Asia. In China it is the colour of the communist party, the traditional bridal colour, good luck, prosperity, longevity, celebration and joy. In India, red means purity. To the Japanese, red is life. To Christians and the Jews it symbolises blood, sacrifice, passion, love and sin. For Europeans red means danger but love-hearts are always coloured red, and so are the for sale signs!

Last month I read a Reuters interview with the former Singaporean cardiologist Mr NK Yong who is a vintage wine collector and consultant to restaurants. Apparently he converted his swimming pool into a wine cellar where he stocks some 12,000 bottles of wine. Asians tend to find some medicinal and aphrodisiac quality in almost any food, plant or drink. And Red wine is no exception. A carefully poured glass of red wine, whose stem is elegantly caressed by the fingers of the wine lover, gives the consumer status and recognition in Asia.

While one would expect Asians to drink chilled and cool white wines in the heat and humidity of the tropics, the statistics tell us a different story. Wine-Searcher.com released its search statistics which showed that in 2008, wine consumers made some 32 million searches on its wine site. Of these searches, Asians chose the most expensive Bordeaux (Red) wines above all other wines.

There is a certain mystique about the RED in wine, what the British call the claret (or is it Clear-Red). You can almost sell any Red wine in the Asian market for its aphrodisiac and medicinal claims alone. If you are the Red Wine Matador, Asia is all bullish and ready to charge at you. Are you seeing too much Red as you read my post? If you are a wine exporter or a wine consultant in Asia, is this also your experience?