Toast to a city of grape wonder

Updated: 2014-06-20 01:46

By Antony Otera (Shanghai Star)

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Each day is different, just as each bottle of wine is different. But my quotidian ritual remains the same. Whether I'm strolling along the plane-treelined boulevards of the former French Concession or past the Monet Garden at the K11 Mall, I take a whiff . The bouquet, often herbaceous and spicy, is merely a promise of what is to come.

I then take a mouthful of this sweet city, savoring the flavors.

Today I might detect strong notes of glamor and style, or youthful exuberance mixed with the faintest hint of braggadocio. Tomorrow, it might be the flavors of innovation and optimism, with a flutter of expectation for a wonderful future.

But it's not all ambrosia of the gods.

Shanghai can be a little cloudy and, yes, even acidic (think PM2.5 levels). Sometimes it's even a tad nutty (cue the occasional pajama-clad elder statesman strolling along the main thoroughfare in the middle of the day). Sometimes the city's simply a sparkling wine (the multi-colored lights that bring the Bund and Shanghai's distinctive, breathtaking skyline to life after dark).

Overall, Shanghai is a big, full-bodied wine with a long finish, the aftertaste lingering on my palate and in my soul, leaving me feeling a little giddy —like the sexy, snake-hipped Shanghainese sirens slithering and sashaying their way through human traffic along Huaihai Road.

It takes a lot to produce a top-notch wine — ahem, city — like Shanghai. Local talent and expatriate creatives who understand this city's potential work hard — like vintners with their grapes — often in unison, to coax it into its fullest expression.

Can you hear the contented sigh in my words? It's a sound not unlike that of a cork being eased out of a bottle of Veuve Clicquot.

Friends ask me: "Will you stay inShanghai beyond your current assignment?" To which I merely answer: "Que syrah, syrah. Whatever will be, will be."

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