This article was first published in Livet’s Goda, Sweden’s leading Wine magazine.
Nestled in the green Asoke valley surrounded by rocky hills, the Granmonte estate glows under a ray of sunshine piercing through the clouds.
The vineyards go as far as the eye can see and one may get a sudden feeling of teleportation when – in the heart of Thailand, only a couple hours away from Bangkok- appear wooden signs in French with evocative words such as «Marsanne», «Roussane» and «Petite syrah».
There, the two Lohitnavy sisters can be found beaming with the legendary Thai smile. Nikki –first female winemaker and oenologist in Thailand as well as the General manager of Granmonte Winery- is busy walking around the estate, a talkie-walkie on her belt while Mimi can be found gracefully coordinating their PR and Marketing efforts with the perfect mix of approachability and business acumen.
A striking aspect of Granmonte is that it truely is a family affair. When Visooth Lohitnavy followed his passion for wine to turn a 12-hectare plot of land in the foothills of the Khao Yai National Park into a winery and vineyard, his wife Sakuna followed him with their two daughters Nikki and Mimmi to settle in the valley.
This saga of passion and hard work started in 1998 and the first bottles of Granmonte came out in 2001.
Early on, the family understood that in order to ensure Thai Wines get recognition and respect from the international wine community, there should be a system in place to vouch for the good ethics and practice of Thai Winemakers. That is how GranMonte became a founding member of the Thai Wine Association in 2004, then a founding member of Asian Wine Producers Association in 2014 and they even managed to register the first protected Geographical Indication in Thailand with ‘Khao Yai Wine’ in 2018.
By doing so, the Lohitnavy family has effectively helped gain invaluable exposure not only for the GranMonte brand but for Thai Wines worldwide.
Nikki, the elder of the two sisters, chose early on to dedicate herself to winemaking and she went to study in Adelaide, Australia, where she is the only scholar in history to have graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Oenology together with Honours in viticulture. While she was studying, she would call her family in Thailand to tell them about whatever important information she learned that could help improve the then-still-young Winery.
She returned to Thailand to become the General Manager of GranMonte after she graduated in 2008.
But learning winemaking, as any craft, is a never-ending process and she travelled to nearly every continent to further improve her knowledge and practice, as well as meeting other winemakers and provide consulting services.
Growing wine in the tropics is quite a different endeavour than in the traditional wine regions. For one, the climate makes it difficult for many types of grapes to grow and thrive. Luckily, from the 1960’s and especially in the 80’s with the Royal Project, Thailand has been testing all sorts of crops (vines included) to see which ones would be the most suitable to grow in the country and what methods were recommended to help protect them. Such findings have been very helpful as a base for winemakers to develop their vineyards in the region, and results indicated that the varieties Chenin Blanc and Shiraz were those that fared the best in terms of growth, wine production and quality.
The climate also has some advantages for winemakers, for example the tropics are not in danger of frost and somehow less susceptible to mildew and parasites than the continental regions.
One of the pests GranMonte encounters though is one few other winemakers would ever face: elephants.
Indeed, it occasionally happens that an elephant or two would venture into the estate, ravaging the beautifully arranged vines on their passage. Nikki remembers witnessing such event one evening under a starry sky, when a mother elephant went for an evening walk with her calf. Far from angry, she simply remembers it as “a beautiful sight”.
In order to avoid destruction on the fence around the vineyard, they even left an opening with the sight: «Elephant’s gate» for the pachyderms to find their way in and out more easily.
However, Nikki is not one to stop at the few sorts of grapes vowed to thrive in Thailand, she loves to experiment – in all sorts of ways. With the grape varieties of course, grafting them if needed to help them grow in the region, but also with the winemaking process.
GranMonte has a top of the line equipment, with shiny vats and all sorts of barrels, and they even have some Georgian qvevris that Nikki brought back from a trip in the region and a state of the art Smart Vineyard System that doubles as Khao Yai first and only weather system.
Nikki and Mimi love wine and they want to share their passion with as many as possible – they currently have over 25 references to cater to all wine lovers, including sparkling wine done in the traditional method.
Nikki also tries her hand at natural wines and original coupage in small batches. «I just love to have fun with it», she laughs. Speaking with the two sisters, one understands that although it is a demanding enterprise – they are still driven by passion, which is what wine should always be about.
When asked if it was difficult as an Asian woman to enter the global market of wine, Nikki notes that it was less the fact she was a woman that made it difficult, than the fact of being Asian. In the wine community, many have yet to try wines from South-East Asia and this often comes with prejudice, thankfully circumvented by blind tastings that allow the GranMonte wines to shine at international wine fairs.
GranMonte’s wine is bound to help skeptics change their vision, as the estate that has now grown into a 48 hectares vineyard is now featured on the tables of Michelin restaurants in Bangkok, regularly collects high awards both in Asia and around the globe and 20% of their wine is now exported, in markets such as Sweden, France and Switzerland.
