Saddle of lamb with au jus reduction, purple artichokes and chickpea bread sticks is paired with a Chateau Cheval Blanc 1967

“I like Hong Kong so much I arranged a small typhoon to keep me here,” quipped Michael Fridjhon, shortly before the Hong Kong Observatory promoted Typhoon Hagupit from a Three to an Eight signal, this year’s fourth.

Fortunately there was just about time for lunch before my media colleagues and I beat a damp retreat for home. This took the form of a sneak preview of what must be considered Hong Kong’s food and wine event of the year, Dramatic Wine and Dine ‘08 at the InterContinental Hong Kong.

The three day event, taking place from Friday, November 21, to Sunday, November 23, which offers gourmets and oenophiles the opportunity to sample some truly extraordinary food and wine pairings, was Fridjhon’s idea.

One of South Africa’s leading wine writers – he is the author, among other works, of the Penguin Book of South African Wines and a contributor to the most authoritative reference books on the subject – Fridjhon is also an accomplished wine event organiser.

Since 1997 he has hosted an annual food and wine pairing weekend in Johannesburg called The Michael Fridjhon Wine Experience, currently in partnership with the Hyatt Regency Hotel there, attended by speakers from the leading French and Australian wine producers.

In 2005 he visited Hong Kong, and stayed at the InterContinental, where he was struck by the quality and variety of the restaurants and food styles. Something similar, he thought, might well work here.

“It seemed to me an opportunity to advance the idea of the Wine Experiences, which I had been hosting for several years previously, and to move the whole concept up a notch with an event that could provide indisputably the greatest wines of the world with an array of food styles – an event sympathetic to a much broader interpretation of what wine and food pairing is all about,” said Fridjhon.

The South African weekends have become highlights of the country’s special events calendar, partly because of the quality of the wines, but also because of the calibre of the speakers.

“My original thinking behind the concept of the Wine Experience was that people do not always have the opportunity of tasting the benchmark examples of the very best wines or wine styles. Perhaps they get a single bottle, but not the opportunity to compare that bottle with other vintages, or with the wines of comparable producers, never really getting a real perspective on what that wine is about and why the best is indeed the best,” Fridjhon observed.

There isn’t much doubt that those attending the first InterContinental event – there are plans to stage it annually - will indeed be tasting the best. Speakers explaining their wines will include, from Bordeaux, Pierre Lurton, General Manager of both Chateau d’Yquem and Chateau Cheval Blanc; from Burgundy Thibault Liger-Belair of Domaine Thibault Liger-Belair and Bernard Hervet of Domaine Faiveley; and from Champagne François Hautekeur of Veuve Clicquot.

Fridjhon was keen to stress, however, that this event is just as much about the food as the wine.

“What has become the driving force behind this event in Hong Kong is the opportunity of pairing these wines with an extraordinary culinary range of opportunities,” he insisted.

Normally in pairings of food and truly fine wine, Fridjhon believes, the food is required to play second fiddle and provide little more than a background against which the wine can shine.

“What we are attempting here is something completely different. It is an equal marriage – a very modern concept – of two very strong partners. Wines with a lot of personality and a great deal to express served alongside cuisine which is cutting-edge, but also equally expressive. It is about pairing that shows the best of the food and the best of the wine,” he averred.

To this end some interesting experiments are being tried – most notably perhaps the surprising pairing of wines from Chateau D’Yquem with some of Nobu Matsuhisa and Hong Kong Nobu chef Oyvind Naesheim’s modern Japanese dishes, alongside “new style” (meaning cooked) sushi and sashimi, prepared by guest chef Kazuhiro Yokoyama, Head Chef of Nobu Tokyo.

Yquem is best known for lusciously sweet – and painfully expensive – wines, and it will be very interesting indeed to taste those paired with Japanese fresh seafood, the optimum match for which is currently generally thought to be dry champagne. Pierre Lurton will speak in his capacity as Chateau d’Yquem General Manager.

Hong Kong’s many Bordeaux lovers are likely to be particularly tempted by the opportunity to taste vintages of Château Cheval Blanc spanning five decades, paired with a menu of contemporary French cuisine created by Benoit Witz, the Michelin-starred chef of Hostellerie de l'Abbaye de la Celle, Alain Ducasse’s Cote d’Azur hotel. Lurton will speak again, this time wearing his Cheval Blanc hat.

The weekend’s final event will comprise a vertical tasting of seven vintages of Veuve Clicquot La Grande Dame – Clicquot’s cuvée de prestige - paired with seven different caviars, followed by yet more champagne with brunch.

François Hautekeur, winemaker at Clicquot, will conduct the tasting, as well as speaking about the legendary Madame Clicquot and her legacy.

It is, however, appropriately, the opening wine tasting and dinner on Friday 21st that truly sets the tone of the event. Taking the theme “Land & The Human Hand” two notable Burgundy proprietors will discuss in depth the sites and soils that produce their wines. Bernard Hervet of Domaine Faiveley and Thibault Liger-Belair of Domaine Thibault Liger-Belair will both speak.

“I have not gone for a style of wine. I have not pursued a New World commitment to cultivar or variety. I have gone for place,” said Fridjhon emphatically.

“I have gone for Yquem, which is distinct and different from Rieussec. I have gone for Cheval Blanc which is distinct and different from its very near neighbour Petrus. Place is the essence of what the wine selection has been about, and with that idea of place, where possible, the idea of evolution – that wine has a primary life, it has as it ages a secondary life, and finally it moves on to its tertiary stage and at that stage it is expressing the fullness of what the producer intended to achieve,” he explained.

Perhaps the choice also had something to do with the availability of the speakers. In wine world terms it is certainly an all-star cast.

“To make sure that it is understood that the wines themselves are expressing themselves fully and correctly in context, we have the people responsible for them doing the presentation. They are here to talk about the wines and about the philosophy behind their aesthetic, and to talk about their expression of place. We are doing our best to bring extraordinary wines to this event, speakers who more than anyone else should be able to express what was intended in their production, and food composed specially for this occasion that can stand up to and complement them in a non combative way,” Fridjhon concluded.

Inevitably all this comes at a price, although the cost merely of sampling all these wines if you were buying them by the bottle would be far higher.

A weekend package including all four events – two dinners, one lunch, one brunch and the associated tastings and seminars - costs $17,800, and the individual events are priced at between $3,380 and $5,880 each, plus 10 percent service charge. All events can be booked through the hotel, which is also offering accommodation packages for the weekend (tel: 2723 3712 or e-mail hongkong@interconti.com). For gourmets and wine lovers who haven’t lost their shirts on Wall Street over the last few weeks it should be quite a weekend.