AROMATIC REDS

The cellars at Librandi, a winery in the southern Italian region of Calabria

Scarpa Rouchet Briccorosa Monferrato Rosso 2015

This limited-production ruché wine—only 3,880 bottles were made—is a rare example of an aromatic-grape wine that is designed for extended ageing in bottle. (I have had examples from the Nineties that have retained their rose-petal perfume). This youthful example keeps its exotic payload of floral goodness tightly packed in a sleek, angular structure.

something extraordinary out of the local rossese grape grown at altitude (600m). It’s sometimes overly rustic in character, but this example manages to layer a lucent, shimmering glaze of tart cherry fruit over an earthy mix of dried sage and brothy savouriness. The nose is seductive with hints of torrone and dried sage.

Paternoster Don Anselmo 2013

The son of a pedicab driver and a market stall attendant, Eko Yuli Irawan didn’t dream of much beyond tending to goats, which he did every day after school to help his family make ends meet. Seeing potential, a local coach let Irawan train for free at his weightlifting gym, a decision that changed Irawan’s life.

Today, the 30-year-old athlete from Sumatra is a three-time Olympian, having won bronze medals in Beijing and London and a silver in Rio de Janeiro. The fact that he’s done this and more despite his tiny stature of 5ft 2in has made him a national hero in his native Indonesia.

Singaporean Noor Mastura had a tumultuous childhood, living for years without a home or enough to eat. At one point, it got to be too much, and Mastura ascended the highest building she could find, fully intending to jump. “But a voice in my head said ‘Not like this, not now’,” says Noor. She eventually climbed down from the ledge, telling herself that things would get better.

They did, and after struggling to make herself and her family more financially secure, Mastura vowed to do what she could so that no one else in Singapore would go hungry, founding nonprofit Back2basics in 2013 to deliver free groceries to underprivileged families and homebound older people. Two years later she co-founded her other non-profit, Interfaith Youth Circle, to encourage dialogue between religions. For her work with both organisations, she was named Singaporean of the Year 2018 by

Not one to lay low, Mastura recently launched Being Bravely Woman, a platform to tackle issues of female empowerment specific to the Muslim world.

Chiau Haw Choon grew up in a good family. He spent his days playing in the hardware shop founded by his grandfather in the small Malaysian town of Megat Dewa. But his life went off the rails when he was 13, after his family moved to Alor Setar, a much larger city, so his father could expand the family business into cement trading. Chiau dropped out of school and became involved in gangs. Two years later, he was

I had was as part of a gang.” Nonetheless, Chiau quickly expanded the business. Within three years, the Chin Hin Group had moved far beyond cement trading, becoming Malaysia’s largest distribution company for building materials. The firm eventually evolved into two separate publicly listed companies, making Chiau, who is now 36, the youngest head of a publicly listed company in Malaysia.

Globally recognised concert pianist Azariah Tan has played at the Kennedy Center in Washington DC, won numerous international competitions and has a doctorate in piano performance. Something that makes Tan unique among his peers, however, is that he has reached these milestones and more despite having lost most of his hearing ability due to a degenerative condition. Tan only has 15 per cent of his hearing remaining and continues to suffer an additional loss of 5 per cent a year. He is likely to be deaf within the next few years.

Rather than let his condition slow him down, Tan draws inspiration from Beethoven, famously deaf, and wants to perform as often as he can in order to give hope to others. He’s raised funds for hearing-impaired children worldwide and played countless charity and outreach shows. In 2017 Tan was a finalist for the Singapore Youth Award, the nation’s highest youth accolade, in recognition of the inspirational role he exemplifies.

The 2008 Sichuan earthquake killed almost 70,000 people and left millions devastated. On that fateful day, dancer Liao Zhi was inside a building that collapsed completely. She lost her 10-month-old daughter, whom she was holding in her arms, and both her legs. Liao was the building’s sole survivor, rescued after being trapped for 30 hours beneath the rubble.

Remarkably, she returned to the stage just two months after the incident, her performance inspiring a nation still in mourning. Liao eventually adjusted to dancing with prosthetic legs, learning to accept the constant pain as her new normal. In 2013, she won the nation’s hearts again, coming in second place in a TV dancing competition,

The same year she released an autobiography to tell the world of her ordeal, which was later adapted into a Hong Kong play, More than a decade since the earthquake, Liao remains a symbol of tenacity and courage, continuing to inspire millions to never give up.

from a small shopfront in Hong Kong’s Mong Kok district in 1993. In the early days, Wang, along with his six employees, would personally load boxes into vans and haul freight across the border. Today, the company operates 66 aircraft and employs almost 300,000 couriers.

Known as the “Fedex of China”, SF is arguably more innovative than its US counterpart. After obtaining China’s first licence for delivery drones, in February this year the company used the devices, which can travel up to 18 kms and carry 10 kgs, to send medical supplies to Wuhan hospitals at the peak of the city’s coronavirus outbreak. Wang still owns 60 per cent of the company’s shares and is the tenth richest person in China. Tatler was unable to confirm if he still personally makes deliveries.

Sean Buranahiran was bullied relentlessly as a child. He learnt martial arts, he says, to bulk up and take on his attackers. It didn’t work out exactly as he had planned, as Sean wound up going to jail for his violent conduct.

After serving his time, Buranahiran told himself he needed to turn his mind, rather than his body, into the powerful weapon. “I wanted to win the war without fighting,” he says, and dedicated himself to learning from the great philosophers. Now he is one of Thailand’s top socialmedia thought leaders, coming to prominence with

his bestselling book based on his experience of turning his life around. His viral videos on life, love and philosophy have been shared by millions, including, says Buranahiran, dozens of high-profile leaders such as the Crown Prince of Dubai. He is also an in-demand motivational speaker and runs his own life lessons course, IVM: The Way of Sean Buranahiran.

As a child, Isko Moreno would rifle through garbage to find his family’s next meal, eking out an existence in the alleyways of Manila’s Tondo district. After being discovered by a talent scout at a neighbour’s wake, he began an acting career, making a name for himself in teen-focused movies before graduating to more serious roles. But Moreno felt the call of public duty, and in the Philippines, where celebrity often carries political cachet, he felt the jump to elected office was within reach.

After a couple of unsuccessful runs at the Senate, last year he became Manila’s youngest ever elected mayor, building a nationwide profile. A shining light in the country’s scandal-prone politics, Moreno is admired for his everyman style, inspiring millions with his “If it happened to me, it can happen to anyone” refrain, and avoiding the trappings of his office. His only indulgences, he says, are the cups of Starbucks coffee he drinks to get through