You don’t think of the Maldives as a wine country. It’s dry for a start, and no vines grow on these sandy atolls. But exciting things are happening here. Emerald Maldives Resort and Spa have started aging wine on the sea floor and, to show there are no depths I will not go to for a good story, I dove down the 30 metres to inspect this bizarre and otherworldly “cellar”.
After a briefing with dive-master Giovanni we descended to the underwater cages where the bottles are rooted. As a wine lover, it felt like discovering sunken treasure. The wine bottles were covered in a fine layer of sand, and brightly coloured fish were darting in-between them. Despite being stored here for six months, it looked like they had been a part of the sea floor far longer. This was no longer any wine world I recognised.
Underwater aging has become a trend in the last couple of years, with people hypothesising pressure, the motion of the sea and the dark as reasons wine develops differently in this environment. It is interesting, and a rarity, but we are still in the early days of shedding light on the vinification benefits.
In the Maldives, however, there are more than just bottles in the sea. My over-water bungalow, possessing the ultimate Maldivian wow factor, had an elevated pool overlooking the Indian Ocean, steps down to the sea and a hammock built into the terrace, from which I watched rays and trumpet fish shift below me. At night, the burning red sun slid over the horizon and the stars came out with such clarity it invited hours of star-gazing.
It was against the orange glow of unbroken sky (it is against the law to build higher than the highest palm tree) that I tried the Italian Sangiovese that had spent six months being gently rocked on the sea floor.
Unexpectedly, our table was set up in the sea itself. Wading into the water from the beach, my long summer dress was immersed nearly to my hips as we stood around it for the tasting. Sushi, cheese and fruit were served with the barnacled bottle. As I sipped, a sizeable reef shark nosed in a couple of metres from us, playing in the shallows. It thankfully retreated before I decided to buy time by lobbing sushi at him.
The wine tasted good, but lacked the development I had experienced in sea-aged wines from cooler seas. Here the water is a toasty 28 degrees, potentially baking the wines. The makers had kept back no samples with which to compare the drink’s development outside of the sea. As magical as the dive and sunset tasting was, I suspect a limited six months of aging and some swift drinking is the best option for wines stored this warmly.
You don’t need to perform extreme water sports to get your wine in the islands. The Ozen Collection prides itself on its all-inclusive wine offering as a point of difference from other resorts. French wine director Nicolas Laguette has lived all over the world and is driven by his curiosity. “Eighty-five per cent of the alcohol consumed [in the Maldives] is wine, four hundred thousand bottles annually and we have guests who want to drink something different every night,” he says. “At Ozen we work with 19 wineries from all over the world and have exclusive partnerships in the Maldives to ensure variety”.
At the Ozen resorts of Maadhoo and Bolifushi, a butler drove me to my villa on the beach through leaf-canopied pathways. From private loungers I watched the sea’s impossible blend of cerulean, sapphire, teal and topaz. In a world of AI and filters it is easy to presume images of Maldives must be retouched, that places like this don’t actually exist. But it really is this amazing. The wind blustered up the beach, waving the palms and providing a welcome relief from the heat.
Each morning the beaches were swept smooth and clear, allowing the pearly-white shelled hermit crabs to leave intricate tracks in the sand. Each day the villa’s complimentary wine fridge was topped up with some of the 89 wines. Every restaurant had a glass of house champagne on arrival and during dinner head sommelier Rohit would entertain by opening bottles using a trick with heated port tongs and wet feathers, or wielding a sword for sabrage at sunset. Wine may take centre stage, but Maadhoo’s executive chef Alok has also installed the Maldives’ first indoor hydrogarden for growing fresh greens. This means vegetables and herbs can be served fresh and not risk wilting during importation.
For sea life without the tank and dive mask, Maadhoo’s underwater restaurant serves baked lobster and seared scallops and this time the diners are in the aquarium. Six metres underwater, guests are seated looking out through the glass walls at groupers, sharks and clown fish just a metre away. ‘Lumo’, meaning salt, serves relaxed Maldivian fare on the beach, where the chef makes salt from the surrounding sea and flavours it in multicoloured jars.
All-inclusive dining can be dangerous, but there are plenty of activities to help balance it out, such as the twice-daily snorkel trips. I saw turtles, box fish, and one lone shark. Passing over the reef and looking down into the drop-off I was suddenly surrounded by a rush of electric blue fish that sunk away as swiftly as they came, back into the deep.
At Bolifushi, Ozen’s flagship resort, the architecture changed to Balinese thatched villas of cool, dark polished wood. Mornings were spent enjoying leisurely floating breakfasts in my private pool (each room has one) and afternoons meant diving at the nearby house reef or listening to the DJ from a hammock at lunch spot Sangu. Here the complimentary wine list goes up to over 100, having just won Asia’s Best All-Inclusive Wine List, though upon learning they had also won Asia’s Best Spirits list, I ordered more than one frozen margarita at sunset, with giant fruit bats swooping above me for company.
Not being a wine producing, or drinking, country means there is experimentation and enthusiasm in the Maldives that is not found in traditional regions. Asian sommeliers don’t think in a Eurocentric way. They are making their own rules. At Bolifushi’s restaurant Saffron I was served “Champagne and Spice”, a multi-course menu pairing a range of French champagnes with spicy Asian dishes.
In Emerald Resort & Spa, our Sri Lankan sommelier selected a stunning 2014 Borolo to pair with my pad thai and red curry. Western wisdom would have served an off-dry white to cool the spice, but here they like their heat; it is after all why they make such dishes to begin with. I swallowed my surprise and succumbed to the match, and it was delicious.
Perhaps it is time to throw away the rule book, or at least relinquish preconceptions. It is surely the point of travel to embrace how the local culture experiences things. From now on I shall embrace robust reds with my curries and no longer suspect champagne of being too delicate to handle heat. This wine professional has learned new tricks.
I was sad to leave my adventures behind, but there was one final surprise – the seaplane. Trans Maldivian Airways is the world’s largest seaplane operator, partnering with 80 resorts here. In a country made up of so much water, these planes are the best way to get around, offering a bird’s eye view with all the convenience of speed and door to door service.
The tiny plane thrummed above brilliant turquoise rings of shallow reef and beyond to the sea’s dramatic drop off into the dark unknown. Like many before me, I was captivated by the wildlife and crystalline waters of the Maldives, but it offers so much more – it is turning from a water into a wine destination as well.
Book this
• The Ozen Life Maadhoo Earth Villa including speedboat transfers costs $1,075 a night
• The Ozen Reserve Bolifushi Earth Pool Villa Sunrise including luxury catamaran transfers is $1,600 a night
• The Emerald Maldives Over Water Villa from $800 a night
• TMA sea plane between Malé Airport and Emerald Maldives costs $590 for 12s and above; $360 for 2-11years; 0-2 fly free