Eye on Asia

After 25 years in Hong Kong and 12 in Singapore, British wine merchants Berry Bros.& Rudd is a seasoned player on the Asian wine landscape. Charlie Rudd, a fourthgeneration family member, now leads the charge in Asia.

- JOYCELINE TULLY

It was an entire cellar dedicated to the quintessential Super Tuscan, Sassicaia. There were thousands of bottles, including magnums. There were even some extraordinarily rare large formats to boot, a fact that caught the sharp eyes of Charlie Rudd, regional manager and fourth-generation of Britain’s oldest wine and spirit merchant Berry Bros. & Rudd (BBR) founded in 1698. These were, as he puts it, “rare as hen’s teeth”.

“When asked why, the collector said it was his first bottle of Sassicaia that really blew him away,” Rudd recounts.

“And he’d been hooked ever since [on collecting only Sassicaia].” Indeed, it proved incredible foresight, given that vintages from this pioneering Italian winery is more in demand than ever, thanks to their complexity and aging potential.

For Rudd, then newly arrived in Singapore in 2019, it was a sign of the budding wine scene he would encounter in the city state. It was interesting for him to see such collectors on the wine scene here. Five years on, he remains struck by the remarkable thirst for knowledge and experience in wine not just in Singapore, but in the region.

Indeed, for Berry Bros. & Rudd, the proud bearer of two Royal Warrants, Singapore, Southeast Asia and the rest of Asia is a brave new world.

Since it established its first Asian office in Hong Kong 25 years ago, Asia has become a key market. Although the company doesn’t have bonded warehousing in Asia, it offers the same services as in UK. In fact, BBR is planning for a year-on-year double digit-growth for 2024, driven by a growing interest and passion among Asian consumers for drinking and collecting fine wines and spirits.