Chris was really keen on arranging a private wine-and-canape tasting for us whilst at Shangri-La in the Maldives. Well, actually, it was meant to be in a group.. but we had other plans on the day it was organised, and so the somellier Markus and Chris discussed to have a private tasting instead. EVEN BETTER! 🙂

The location of choice was in Javvu’s private dining room, or rather, on its balcony since it sits right on the sand and overlooks the ocean. We were forewarned that we would be served canapes with our wines, but we totally did not expect them to be that generous! We literally couldn’t finish it all… trays and trays of canapes just kept coming out – evidently made to serve 4 people but it was only 2 of us eating 😉 We tried our best and allllllmost finished everyone one, but had to leave a few behind.

The wines were excellent because Marcus selected well. He spoke to us the day before to get an understanding of our tastes, and based on that, he put together a selection of light and chilled white wines. He chose so well that we happily drank glass after glass.. and in the end had 6 (!!!) glasses of wine EACH. That’s a lot for what was supposed to be just “tasting” 😛 We were so delighted that he was really generous with the wines, and felt absolutely taken care of.

We also learned a lot about the regions the wines came from, and what to look for in different wines. All that drinking, eating and chatting ended up taking up over 3 hours! An awesome way to spend a lazy afternoon 🙂

Outside on the private dining porch area

A hideously close-up pic Chris took of us

OK, better 😛

A Riesling from Germany, from a town about 40km from where our sommelier grew up!

Canapes! I loved the salmon, avocado and cream cheese rolls

3nd wine, also from Germany

More canapes – delish

2 sweeter wines from France

My favourite canapes of the lot – meatballs (in the background) and pork schnitzel

With the Shangri-La Maldive’s sommelier Markus, from Germany!