This year Lunar New Year will be celebrated starting on Jan. 29.
As Lunar New Year is celebrated for up to two weeks after this date, there are a lot of wines and spirits that are consumed and gifted during this festive season. As such, I have prepared a list of wines/spirits to meet your consumption and gifting needs.
Penfolds Bin 389
This is sometimes referred to as “Baby Grange” or a more approachable version of Penfolds’ flagship wine, Grange. It is a blend of Cabernet Sauvignon and Shiraz grapes used to produce this wine and is always wonderfully robust with lots of dark fruit and oak flavours.
The numbers three, eight and nine are all auspicious numbers for the Chinese and in B.C., the wine comes in a special gift box for $112.99.
If you would like to package the wine yourself in a red or gold wine bag, the wine itself (without the gift box), is reduced this month at BC Liquor Stores from $99.99 to $89.99. Here is my review of the older vintage of this wine.
Hennessy XO CNY Edition
Hennessy has produced the 2025 Year of the Snake Limited Edition XO, designed in collaboration with renowned Chinese fashion designer Shuting Qiu.
There is a special gift box and a unique design on the label. In addition, there will be two personalization events at B.C. Liquor Stores (at the Richmond Brighouse store on Jan. 18, between 1 and 5 p.m. and at the Vancouver 39th and Cambie streets location on Jan. 26 between 1 and 5 p.m.) where you can have a bottle engraved in-store in English or Chinese.
Priced at $378.99 at B.C. Liquor Stores, while quantities last.
Mission Hill Gift Set
In honour of the Lunar New Year, Mission Hill Family Estate has a special three-bottle wine set for the celebration.
The set consists of a bottle of 2020 Oculus, 2019 Compendium and 2019 Quatrain.
Occulus is the winery’s flagship wine and is a blend of 49-per-cent Merlot, 24-per-cent Cabernet Sauvignon, 22-per-cent Cabernet Franc and five-per-cent Petit Verdot.
The Compendium is a more Cabernet dominant wine that is a blend of 47-per-cent Cabernet Sauvignon, 30-per-cent Cabernet Franc, 21-per-cent Merlot and two-per-cent Petit Verdot, whereas Quatrain is a blend containing some Syrah grapes (47-per-cent Syrah, 27-per-cent Cabernet Sauvignon, 18-per-cent Merlot and eight-per-cent Cabernet Franc).
This gift set compares the different red blends offered by Mission Hill. This set is priced at $385 and available directly from the winery
Donatella Cinelli Colombini 2018 Il Drago
Although 2025 is the Year of the Snake, you can never go wrong at Lunar New Year with a red label accompanied by a dragon and eight white doves.
The dragon symbolizes the husband of the owner and represents good luck, strength and health while the eight white doves symbolizes the eight female staff who work at the winery, representing peace and longevity.
But beyond the label, this is a very good wine. It is a blend of Sangiovese and Merlot grapes, which you will find black cherry, blackberry and plum flavours with an earthy, tobacco finish.
Please keep in mind that for the wines listed above, you will save GST until Feb. 15.
Wishing all my viewers a very prosperous and healthy Year of the Snake. Until next time, happy drinking!
Tony Kwan is a Richmond News columnist. Lawyer by day, and a food and wine lover by night. Kwan is an epicurean who writes about wine, food and enjoying all that life has to offer.
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