FRV Travel talks with Katrina Valkenburg, the woman behind Bali’s first wine school, about her life, her passion for wines and her plans for Bali’s first wine school located at the WineHouse on Jalan Kerobokan.

Text by Herman Von Bernhardi

Katrina, please tell us about your self and your background
I was born in the last year of the Baby Boomer generation in Sydney and having completed my schooling I went on to study commercial art and communications and during that period I spent a great deal of my spare time performing in rock bands.

How long have you been living in Bali?
I first came to Bali in 1989 on my honeymoon and spent two idyllic weeks at the Tanjung Sari in Sanur. My move to Bali six years ago was after my mother moved on to a higher plain and I no longer felt rooted to the big smoke. I was looking for my own sea change and having spent about 50 weeks in paradise since my honeymoon, thought that Bali was the place for me.

Where does your passion for wines come from?
I was brought up in a home where wine was served with every meal (excluding breakfast, of course!) and I would sneak the odd taste when no one was looking. Perhaps it permanently penetrated my bloodstream, because by the time I was 16 I was an avid admirer of all things vinous.

And then along came a man who really turned water into wine for me. I was training to become an opera singer when we met. He was looking for a singer in his band and after much deliberation (based more on his good looks than the likelihood of it being a very good idea) I said yes. Aside from being a great guitarist and pianist, he also had a vast knowledge and love of wine and he began to train my palate and I soon discovered that I had a talent, I was born with very keen olfactories which meant that my sensory memory was pretty good. Having blindfolded me he would hand me a glass and ask me to name the grape, the country, the region, the vintage and sometimes the winemaker. I was surprisingly accurate and decided that the world of wine was the world I wanted to live in.

How did you become involved in this world of wines?
I had been working in public relations for a short while when I was asked to represent four boutique brands from the biggest wine company in Australia. I organized media and trade events in all the capital cities and travelled with the winemakers picking up as much knowledge as I could. One of the brands was Leo Buring, whose winemaker, John Vickery, was considered the Ambassador of Riesling in Australia. My passion for cool climate Riesling was born. Another of the brands was Rouge Homme which produced the first, truly representational entry-point pinot noir and ‘whacko’, another love affair began.

What do you like about wine the most?
There are too many things to mention. Suffice to say, aside from the flavour and its inherent digestive qualities, I like the effect it has on me, and others…most of the time.

Where did the idea of the first wine school in Bali come from?
I’ve been teaching wine courses at hotels and restaurants in Bali for the past five years, but to make the courses viable they need 14 students and that’s quite a number of staff to take off the floor for a couple of hours a week, let alone the cost involved with the purchase of the wines. I wanted to create a conducive environment where individuals from restaurants and hotels, along with non-professionals who may live here or be here on holiday, could come to learn about all things vinous.

What are the details?
Winehouse School will hold regular professional and non-professional courses and classes. For the professionals there will be a bronze, silver and gold course, which, having been completed, will put them in good stead to sit for their sommelier’s exam. For non-professionals, we will start with Wine Appreciation 101 and see how things go. There will also be food and wine matching classes, special one-day workshops and wine dinners.

What is the best part of doing this project here in Bali and what are the challenges?
The best part is, of course, that it’s in Bali. The challenge is, of course, that it’s in Bali.

What do you think about the relationship between wine and food?
A very subjective question. For me, where there’s food there will no doubt be wine. However, where there’s wine, there will not necessarily be food. NB I don’t eat breakfast!

Which one is your personal favorite wine pairing?
Mmmmm, there are quite a few. Duck confit with pinot noir; OssoBucco with an elegant cool climate shiraz; pear frangipane with botrytis affected riesling; Christmas pudding with muscat or Pedro Ximenez sherry.

Could you please give our readers simple tips to create their own pairings?
Wine and food matching is all about balance: a balance between the flavour, weight and texture of the food and the wine. Ideally, the flavour components of a wine need to harmonize with the flavour components of the dish it is matching. Delicate food requires delicately flavoured wine and conversely, rich, robust food requires bigger, heavier wines. But it is the wine that should play second fiddle to the food no matter how fabulous or expensive. There is no joy if the wine dominates the food. Matching food and wine involves using all the senses – sight, sound, smell, taste and touch – and observing how they interact to create an overall effect or flavour in your mouth.

“Delicate food requires delicately flavoured wine and conversely, rich, robust food requires bigger, heavier wines. ”

Having said that, it is the wine one should taste before deciding on what dish to cook, particularly if you are hosting a wine dinner. It is important to determine the aroma, flavour, intensity, length and texture of the wine to find at least one corresponding characteristic to match with the food. For example, the grassy, herbal character in sauvignon blanc matches well with the grassy herbal character of goat’s cheese, asparagus or green peas. Trying to match the same foods with a tannic cabernet sauvignon would be completely disastrous.

How would you describe your wine selection at the WineHouse?
Eclectic. That said, you have to have a wide range of wines that will appeal to a wide range of wine lovers from the aficionado to the newcomer. To a certain extent we also need to consider that our customers come from far-reaching parts of the globe and all have their favourites.

How do you select the wines for sale in the WineHouse?
I look for quality foremost, however a wine needs to represent good value at whatever the price point to win me over.

What or who are your influences?
I’m very influenced by my nose but I’ve had a lot of help training it – the late Len Evans OBE; the worldly James Halliday and the Wine Man, Peter Bourne to name a few.

New world wines and old world wines, which ones do you prefer and why?
Both the old and the new world offer spectacularly different and exciting wines and both can be relished in the right situ with the right company.

Thanks for your time Katrina and good luck with the school.

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