Jayvee Fernandez is a tech enthusiast and sitting TechNology Editor for The Philippine STAR.
He is also an EAN certified SCUBA Diver and underwater photographer based in Metro Manila, Philippines. His photos and videos have appeared in various international and local publications including Random House Germany, Discovery Channel Canada, and CNN.
Author’s note: This piece originally appeared as a column entry in the May 2006 issue of MPH where I was one of the founding editors at large. MPH was literally the biggest tech magazine in the local industry that focused on technology that could fit in your pocket.This piece brings me great joy, emanating from the fact that the thoughts are frozen in time – frozen in 2006. Updating RSS feeds. EDGE. WiFi as a novelty. This piece is more than a decade old. And you know what? Some things just don’t change.
Phones. I used to review a lot of these back in the day. Then I took a hiatus after covering Mobile World Congress. That was back in 2011. Barcelona was the summit. I stopped. Fell in love with other things. Mobile phones took a backseat – not from the usage, but from the writing. It was tough to move on with life, putting all your hobbies and interests into compartments. The mistake people make is they leave nothing for themselves and in this age of Alexa, surveillance, social media, the sacred is what is not shared. It is the exception, not the norm.
An organization’s web presence is one of the most valuable and most vulnerable parts of their network, as being able to interact with customers online is crucial to the success of the modern business. However, every piece of code that the organization exposes to the Internet is a potential entry point for attackers.
Matthew Westfall has the backstory of a leading man on a quest to make his country, the Philippines, the darling in one of the biggest industries in the world – gin. His mission is filled with irony though, given that the Philippines is already the number one country in the world in terms of gin consumption – that’s 46% of the total world consumption. But with a global industry worth more than USD$3 billion, the Philippines barely makes a dent at about 2% of the market thanks to gin being labeled as a drink from the streets.
“In France, it’s never a complete meal unless you have two things: wine and dessert.” Inside this bottle is both.Â
There will always be that one dish that will change your perception of how a particular meal is prepared. With liquor, it’s always a bottle – usually a small, quirky one, that changes your entire worldview of how a drink should be enjoyed. In my personal journey with alcoholic libations it was a bottle of Lagavulin 16 that introduced me to the nuances of peated whiskey and a bottle of Four Pillars that made pairing gin with a proper tonic a science. I haven’t experienced a similar feeling with wine, until that one night in November when I dropped by La Piazza, Okada Manila’s Italian restaurant and wine cellar.Â
Hans Astrom (EVP of Klein Constantia), Donna Manio (PR Manager of Okada Manila), me, and OKada Manila Sommelier Damien Robert Planchenault
Napoleon’s wine
What I thought would be a normal run off the mill tasting and pairing took an interesting turn towards dessert. The featured wines for the evening were from the Klein Constantia Estate, with 300 years of history making wines. Founded in 1685, the estate is located at the southernmost tip of the continent. Their most famous bottle is a natural sweet wine called Vin de Constance. I will just lift the description of this wine from their website, because there is no better way to say it,
“Kings vied for possession of this wine; Louis Philippe sent emissaries from France to fetch it; Napoleon drank it on the island of St Helena to find solace in his lonely exile; Frederick the Great and Bismarck ordered it; and the English Prime Minister – who had sampled it with much delight at Downing Street – made sure that regular consignments from the Cape were delivered to Buckingham Palace for the King.â€
“A wine like this can only be grown at the estate,†says Hans Astrom, Executive Vice Chairman & Partner of Klein Constantia. “It is called a natural sweet wine because the grapes have to be cool when picked, so they do this in the very early morning when it is very cold. There is nothing artificial added. No sugar added, not like in other sweet wines.â€
The wine of Napoleon
I was drinking a wine with over 300 years of history. A wine that has also tasted the lips of Napoleon and Frederick the Great. Right here in this Italian restaurant where a date for two will only set you back less than P2,000. What a deal.
“Damien, tell me about this. Why is this so good?â€
Damien Robert Planchenault, sommelier for La Piazza sits down beside me and pours himself a glass.
“What you have in front of you is very special, very one of a kind. Wine does not need to be expensive to be good. Expensive wine is like the Batmobile. Would you drive the Batmobile? No, but because there’s only one that is why it is expensive.â€
Everyone else can drive Honda or Toyota and be perfectly happy.
Car allusions aside, Damien says that Vin de Constance is good because you had it after a meal and that helps. If the weather is hot and you’re by the poolside, the hotel won’t serve you a heavy red wine. Instead they look for a light wine that goes well when served chilled. “You want the guest to come back and say ‘I want one more please.’ That is how you know you paired well.â€
The evolution of taste
The wine market today is very different from before. It’s quite similar to the way coffee has elevated itself into a 3rd wave movement. “Back then we would ask what wine do you want to drink? Chile? French? Old world? New world? Now it has more to do with taste — ah! You like Cabarnet Souvignon? You like dry? Light? Sweet?†Then from there, the sommelier recommends. It has more to do with looking at similar wines you have tried in the past to match what you can enjoy in the future.
For instance, one of the most notable wines that evening (apart from that amazing Vin de Constance) was a KC White, Klein Constantia 2018 paired with caprese (mozzarella salad). It was crisp and had the typical sweetness of a white wine but just enough body to not be overwhelmed for an appetizer. Out of curiosity I google-ed the bottle was less than P600.00 online.
Okada Manila’s opulent Versace wine glasses
I think the beauty of wine appreciation and pairing necessitates how extensive the cellar is, because you can only try as much as they have. The La Piazza restaurant at Okada Manila is the cellar. Instead of walls, you have chillers lined with literally hundreds of bottles. So, if in the near future you need to educate yourself in wine appreciation, this is definitely one of the better places in Manila to go for that.Â
