About Asia Wine Review
Building critical authority for the Asian wine market.
Asia has built a fine wine market with real weight. Hong Kong, Singapore, Tokyo, Shanghai — billions of dollars in trade, decades of collecting, some of the most serious cellars and tables in the world. What it has not had is a critical institution to match. Scores that matter here have largely come from elsewhere, filtered through palates trained on different food, different climates, different ideas of what a wine is for.
Asia Wine Review exists to close that gap. Not by translating Western criticism into local languages, and not by adding Asian words to Western frameworks as decoration. By building critical authority from the ground up, evaluated through the Asian palate and the Asian table, because that is the lens this region's wine market actually needs.
The Founder
A Singapore-based wine professional trained through the Wine & Spirit Education Trust, Jaclene built AWR on a conviction that the Asian wine market has earned critical authority that speaks from the inside — not commentary imported from London or New York with a regional addendum attached. Her work sits at the intersection of import, education, and branding, and AWR is the institution she found missing.
The Panel
Every wine reviewed by AWR is tasted blind, by a panel of named critics, each with a defined category of expertise. The Founding Critics are: Tan Ying Hsien MW, Gerald Lu, Jackie Ang MW, Vincent Tan, Celine Jung, and Yeo Xi Yang.
This is not a single critic's palate standing in for a region. It is a methodology.
Independence is not a value statement here, it is the architecture. Advertising, trade relationships, and investment do not touch scores or editorial placement. That line does not move, for anyone.
If a piece could have been written by a publication anywhere else in the world, it probably doesn't belong here. AWR exists for the writing that only makes sense from this side of the table.
We learn from the best critics' platforms — jancisrobinson.com, decanter.com — to build something uniquely Asian: by a team of credentialed, respected Asian voices in Asian wine markets.