Meet Singapore’s latest Master of Wine: Dr Jackie Ang

Singapore is now home to the highest concentration of MWs per square metre. Nimmi Malhotra gets the lowdown from the Institute's latest recruit. After seven years of intensive study, Dr Jackie Ang has finally achieved the title of Master of Wine (MW) becoming the third Singaporean to earn the honour. He joins two fellow nationals – Singapore based Tan Ying Hsien MW and UK based Tze Sam MW – who have previously achieved the title. With Ang’s success, Singapore now boasts five resident MWs – Ying Hsien Tan, Richard Hemming, Annette Scarfe Benjamin Hasko and now Ang. This makes Singapore home to the highest concentration of MWs per square metre, with one MW for 147 square metres of land.

The supertaster

Educated at both Cambridge and Oxford Universities, Ang cut his wine teeth at the Oxford Blind Tasting Society, the training ground of wine greats like Oz Clarke and Jasper Morris. He was named the top individual taster at Oxford in 2017 and was dubbed a ‘supertaster’ in a 2017 article in The Economist. “I was part of the Oxford Wine Tasting society for four years,” he says. “It was a very international group, and we were doing competitive blind tasting. Believe it or not, there is such a sport.” Tasting through inexpensive wines, the group provided him a very solid foundation in all the classic styles. Every year, their goal was clear – to beat Cambridge. “So, in a way, I was really a traitor,” he admits, having earned his first master’s degree in pharmacology from Cambridge before pursuing a PhD in medical science at Oxford. Ang’s wine accomplishment sits alongside his full-time career as a pharmaceutical scientist. He currently heads a High Throughput Drug Screening platform at the Singapore-based Experimental Drug Development Centre (EDCC). When not immersed in his day job, he runs a wine education school, Cherwill Wine and Spirits, where he teaches WSET levels 2 and 3. Life, as it stands, revolves around work, family of two kids and of course, wine.

Capturing a scientist’s imagination

“When I was in secondary school, my best subject wasn't science – it was geography,” Ang says, sipping a glass of Rainer Wess Loibenberg 2015 Riesling from Austria. In school, he was part of the Singapore team in the International Geography Olympiad and the Chemistry Olympiad, inadvertently laying the groundwork for wine education in the future. After achieving his PhD, he embarked on the Master of Wine programme. He views wine as a vital cultural component tied to the world that produces it and soaked up culture, history, heritage and of course, chemistry and geography aspects. Along the way, his MW studies were interrupted by the family issues, some thwarted attempts and the global pandemic. Despite these setbacks, Ang never once considered giving up. He approached his failures analytically, resolving them with clinical precision. This year, he overcame all obstacles and achieved his goal. The newly minted MW aspires to represent the underrepresented. “I'm not necessarily wanting to push people to drink more, but I want to push people that want to explore more," he explains. “There are so many great wines out there that Asia is not necessarily appreciating at the moment, he says. Among them is his favoured style – Riesling, which remains under appreciated in the region. Holding up his glass of Austrian Riesling, he asks: “Why aren’t we drinking more Rieslings? A dry Riesling goes well with Japanese food, the sweeter ones go well with the heavy flavours you get from our local food, like Nyonya.”

Wine is foreign

Reflecting on the Asian wine culture, Ang observes: “Singapore and Southeast Asian wine culture is not at the point that we can say it's mature. It's still developing.” “Singapore is 75% Chinese, and wine is not inherent in the Chinese culture,” he explains, noting wine is still seen as a foreign product. “Wine is not something that Singaporeans necessarily buy on a daily basis. It's not part of our daily lives.” But Ang is optimistic. There is a strong base on wine lovers in this region, and Ang is committed to expanding this based through education and advocacy work. “Southeast Asia is a big growth area. The Singapore market alone is growing by 4% to 5% in value,” he notes, making a case for developing wine culture. So, what will accelerate this growth? According to Ang, it’s mainstream media. “We need a charismatic wine communicator. A good story like Drops of God or a K-Pop star-fronted series. That will get wine moving.”