Acclaimed sommelier Reeze Choi debuts Project 933 with Japanese winemaker Vinoble Vineyard

Choi’s collaborative wine venture that sounds like a classified operation but represents something far more romantic: the simple addition of the Hong Kong (+852) and Japan (+81) area codes. But why Hiroshima? And why not the sun-kissed slopes of Burgundy or Barossa? His gambit emerged from what can only be described as viticultural destiny. 

It was a chance encounter with a particular Japanese wine, which Choi favoured during a blind tasting at the 2022 Hong Kong Washu Awards, that led him to Takashi Yokomachi, a Japanese winemaker and owner of Vinoble. Noting that the collaboration was almost serendipitous, Choi says: “I didn’t choose Hiroshima, Hiroshima chose me.” While Project 933 aspires to demonstrate the potential of Japanese wines to a world still mystified by the notion of serious vintages emerging from the Land of the Rising Sun, it also echoes Choi’s broader philosophy about Hong Kong’s capacity for global achievement.

His approach to this challenging venture reflects humility. Choi embraced Hiroshima’s climatic challenges—think an average annual rainfall of 1,400mm (twice that of Burgundy), typhoons, earthquakes, and humidity that would make Singapore seem positively arid—as opportunities rather than obstacles. The partnership, which involves working with the region’s Miyoshi clay soils at an elevation of 200m, represents a calculated gamble on terroir’s transformative power, informed by years of competition-honed intuition about what makes exceptional wine.

The inaugural 2023 releases, comprising just 890 bottles of sauvignon blanc-semillon blend and 300 of pure chardonnay, represent winemaking as haute couture: exquisitely crafted and deliberately limited, for those who understand that scarcity breeds desire. The former showcases sauvignon blanc's potential to deliver upfront notes of green apple and pear with a hint of green pepper and dry herbs, while the semillon balances with lovely tropical fruit and body. An additional ageing of seven months in old French oak barrels then adds whispers of vanilla without overwhelming the fruit’s essential character.

The chardonnay, meanwhile, spent 10 months contemplating its future in a combination of new and old oak barrels—65 per cent of which are new Hungarian barrels and 35 per cent of which are old French ones. The result? Generous stone fruit character, such as fresh white peaches and ripened pears, elevated by tropical pineapple and passion fruit notes, with baking spice providing architectural support.

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The bottlings of the 2023 vintage are where Choi's obsessive attention to narrative detail becomes genuinely charming. Each wine label features photographs he personally shot using a vintage Canon F-1 film camera. The first release features images shot at Shiomachi Station, the railway station located in the city of Miyoshi. The sauvignon blanc-semillon label shows half platform, half railway, akin to a visual pun on its 50-50 blend, whereas the chardonnay label depicts wooden station interiors to reflect varying oak treatments; both labels feature beams of sunlight that/to commemorate the warm vintage.

Perhaps, most audaciously, Choi plans to plant pinotage in 2027. “When we talk about wines from Hokkaido, we think of cool climate grapes like pinot noir or blaufränkisch as star grapes. Then there’s merlot for Nagano, and Koshu for Yamanashi,” he explains, unveiling his vision for pinotage to be Hiroshima’s iconic grape varietal. It is a choice that raises eyebrows, as pinotage’s reputation oscillates between mishandled viticultural aberration and misunderstood gem. While the general sentiment historically leans more towards the former, Choi is determined to produce a special wine that is well-suited to the region despite the negative perceptions.

“Most of these emerging wine regions work with local conditions and do what is possible rather than try to replicate wines from other renowned regions,” he shares, reflecting on his promotional efforts of Japanese wine throughout Asia as a former ambassador of such wines in Hong Kong for many years.

His stance on pinotage is sound in reason, banking on the fact that the cross variety between pinot noir and cinsault offers greater tolerance than the fragile, thin-skinned pinot noir while retaining its desirable characteristics. Even results from soil analysis conducted suggest that pinotage would thrive in Vinoble’s terroir. His current experimental pinotage is a refreshing departure from the powerful, heavily oaked styles that have given the grape its polarising reputation. “Our style is lighter, fruit-forward with peppery and spicy notes, less oaked, lighter in colour with more red fruit character,” he reassures. “It’s time more people drank Japanese wine.”

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Choi’s ultimate ambition transcends personal achievement and reflects the broader evolution he is witnessing in Hong Kong’s wine culture over the past decade; that its wine scene has expanded beyond the Franco Italian hegemony to embrace atypical gems from South Africa, Eastern Europe, China and, of course, Japan, each representing a journey of discovering their own styles without established references too. He also believes that wine should not be relegated to rarefied restaurant experiences, but should be embraced as part of daily life, as the pandemic has inadvertently accelerated the vinous democratisation. 

What emerges from Choi’s narrative is not necessarily a perfect vintage, but rather, real passion translated into purposeful action. In an industry often paralysed by the weight of tradition, Choi’s willingness to embrace uncertainty, challenge perceptions and quite literally get his hands dirty is the definition of professional courage.

Even as he crafts wines in Hiroshima, Choi maintains his competitive sommelier career, where he most recently won the 2025 ASI Best Sommelier of Greater China title—the fifth time he has done so—and will go on to represent Hong Kong and China. He is also preparing for the ASI Best Sommelier of Asia and Pacific held in Malaysia this September, and the ASI Best Sommelier of the World competition in Lisbon, Portugal, in October 2026.

Since joining his first local wine competition back in 2013, Choi’s dedication to sommellerie is resolute. “If I make it to the finals, held in Lisbon in 2026, that means that I have been competing for 13 years,” he recalls. “That’s a good one-third of my lifetime spent [being] active on the competitive stage.”

Whether Project 933 achieves global recognition remains to be seen, but the audacity of attempting to make his own wines, and even planting pinotage in Japan, is already intoxicating enough. After all, in a world drowning in predictable pinot noir, should we not toast to the madman brave enough to go against the grain?

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