Cho Lee’s top Hong Kong wine retail spots

A unique aspect of Hong Kong’s wine scene is its strong BYOB culture, with many restaurants and hotels offering a one-for-one: buy one wine from the list and bring one bottle with no corkage. It would therefore be remiss not to mention the best retail shops where you can buy a great bottle of wine to bring to your favourite restaurant. Watson’s

Wine (watsonswine.com) is the largest retailer, with 28 stores throughout the city – its Central and Pacific Place shops have the greatest Bordeaux selection with 450 lines each, and nearly as many Burgundy options. Enoteca

(enoteca.com.hk), originally from Japan, has eight stores in Hong

Kong and its largest selection can be found in the Tsim Sha Tsui store. Ponti Wine Cellars (pontiwinecellars.com.hk) is another reliable retailer and has been around since 1988; its Central and Tsim Sha Tsui stores both carry hundreds of fine wines from around the world, including a strong Italian selection. Rare & Fine Wines (rarenfinewines.com.hk) and

Burgundy etc (etcwineshops.com) are part of the Altaya Group (altayagroup.com) and have six stores between them. All carry a large selection of wines, with their core offering being Bordeaux, Burgundy and Napa wines. A relative newcomer to the scene is The Fine Wine Experience (finewineexperience.com), with two wine shops and an impressive list of fine wines that is heavily skewed towards Burgundy and Bordeaux.

Another distinctive part of Hong Kong’s wine-and-dine scene is the importance of private members’ clubs. Nearly all private clubs have exceptional wine lists with much lower mark-ups than in restaurants; so if you are visiting and have a local friend, get them to bring you to one of the following clubs with extensive wine lists: Hong Kong Country Club

(countryclub.hk),The Hong Kong

Jockey Club (hkjc.com), The Aberdeen Marina Club (aberdeenmarinaclub. com), or The Hong Kong Club (thehongkongclub.hk).