** This is a part of a series of posts about my blog trip to Thailand. **

You didn’t think there’d be a vineyard in South East Asia, did you? I imagined vineyards in France, California and other ‘cooler weather’ places but tropical Asia? Thailand?

During the last couple of years Thailand has become a grape and wine producing country. The wines  produced outside the traditional geographical heartlands of the wine country, like wines in warmer, tropical countries like Thailand are called “new latitude wines”.

“For years we have drawn two bands around the globe, roughly between latitudes 30 and 50, to denote those parts of it deemed suitable for viticulture,” Jancis Robinson, the well-known British wine expert, wrote of the new phenomenon on her Web site.

“But all this is changing fast. Advances in refrigeration and irrigation techniques, not to mention much greater control over how and when vines grow, have opened up to the grapevine vast tracts of the world previously thought unsuitable for viticulture.”

The vineyard was located in a valley. It was beautiful. I couldn’t wait to see it closer.

Wouldn’t it be nice to go around the vineyard on top of an elephant?

Then lunch happened. And to everyone’s pleasure (oh not everyone, two members of our group do not drink alcohol at all), wine tasting.

A plate of great food and a couple of wine glasses later, we did not have time (and energy) to go down the vineyards and see it up close. And besides, maybe a little bit tipsy. It was really hot at mid day and after a heavy lunch with alcohol, an average person would just want to take a nap.

I am so that average person.

So no vineyard tour, but there were fresh grapes in the restaurant.

Anyway, I’ve developed a really bad habit of diving into my the food on my plate first forgetting to take pictures and this bad habit followed me to Thailand! I only remember taking photos of my food when the spoon is already in my mouth, the food on my plate not appealing anymore due to its incomplete form! So frustrating – it happened during our lunch at the vineyard too. I had something really good so it’s a pity I have no proof to show it!

I’ll blame it on the wine.

The wines available at the vineyard – I am not sure which ones I/we had.

By ‘we’, I mean our group:

(one of us didn’t want pictures of herself online so the sticker…)

Now that wine is such a popular interest in so many parts of the world, vineyards are springing up at equally low latitudes in such unlikely places as Vietnam, Southern India, Indonesia, Ethiopia, Kenya, Bolivia, Peru, among others.

* Photos taken using Canon EOS 550D and Canon PowerShot SD960IS