Tropical wine siblings - 23rd July 2020

The Lohitnavy sisters produce their award-winning wine in Thailand.

While this looks like Tuscany or the South of France, it is in fact just 3 hours outside Bangkok.

The sisters' parents set up the Granmonte Vineyard. However, it is their daughter Nikki who is changing the vineyard's output to suit the tropical climate. Now winemakers from around the world come to the sisters for help. They want to understand how climate change will affect winemaking.

Nikki: “Tropical wine making is really up and coming. A lot of wine makers from around the world they want to know what we do here because the climate is changing so they have to adapt to warmer temperatures, higher rainfalls in their regions too."

However, climate isn't the only challenge for the sisters. They also have to follow Thailand's strict advertising rules.

Mimi: “For example I can't show clearly a bottle of my wine, I can't post on social media what the wine tastes like, how or why it's good and also there's a restriction in the form of excise tax."

During lockdown, the vineyard has lost nearly 1 million dollars in earnings and the sisters worry that further rules could make things more difficult.