First Taste: Bhutan’s Ser Kem

In 2004, David Keen, my first editor back when I started in journalism, published a short book called Bhutan: Land of the Thunder Dragon. David has spent over 30 years working many different organisations in Bhutan, both in the public and private sectors, and it was an article that he wrote when we were working together in Hong Kong in the 1990s that first introduced me to this Himalayan kingdom that is roughly the size of Switzerland and measures success according to the philosophy of Gross National Happiness (GNH).

The image of Bhutan has stuck with me ever since – the isolation and rugged awe of its mountains, the travel restrictions that at the time only allowed in a couple of thousand tourists per year, the whirling beauty of its prayer wheels during the Thimphu and Paro religious festivals. Buttertea at Sunrise is one of my favourite memoirs, somehow making Bhutan the country that I have most visited in my mind despite never setting foot over its borders.

I still have a copy of David’s book here, and read it again last week, preparing for the first European tasting of Ser Kem, the improbable wine that was born out of a chance encounter, an ambitious idea, and a refusal to quit.

Cultivating a new vineyard land
All of this means that I can totally understand how the country got under the skin of Mike Juergens and his partner Ann Cross. It was Ann, first, who fell in love with the idea of Bhutan, reading about the country in high school, and later persuading Mike to join her there for one of a series of marathons they were running around the world. Once there, Mike quickly joined her in the obsession with the natural beauty and simply the otherness of the place. A senior partner at Deloitte who specialises in consulting for high end wine businesses, he was also struck by a thought that wouldn’t go away.

“Every piece of fruit I ate while in the country seemed like the best version I had ever had,” said Mike by way of explanation, “the entire place was crazy beautiful, and I kept imagining vineyards everywhere we went”.

This is a guy who grew up as an Orange County skater kid. He’s worked hard, had huge success in a major consulting firm, and has spent the last decade of his life on what at the outset must have seemed an enormous gamble with his time and resources. Bhutan is a country that has never grown grapes before – famously  in the Dzongkha language (the national language of Bhutan), there is no native word for grapes, because they are not an indigenous fruit. Today, the word used is often dronglok shingdrä, which literally means “foreign fruit” or “fruit from abroad.”

When I knew I would be tasting the wine, I asked David, with his extensive understanding of Bhutan people and culture, what he thought. He queried if the locals would take to wine as the country’s food is extremely spicy, and the national drinks have typically been either ara, a creamy alcohol made from barley or rice used in religious ceremonies as far back as the 7th century or more recently whisky either locally produced or enthusiastically imported.

Getting underway
No doubt true, but I’m guessing that to Mike, this history must have simply underlined that there was a culture in Bhutan that made the country suited for wine drinking – in fact this ancient tradition may have given him the idea for the name Ser Kem, meaning an offering of alcohol to the gods.

When he suggested the idea of creating a national wine industry to the Bhutanese government, they took their time to come round, but eventually agreed that vineyards and wine growing fell squarely within the country’s stated aim of slow, sustainable development. They even donated the land needed to form the Bhutan Wine Company, as long as Mike himself would oversee the project as a joint venture with the Kingdom. And as the local government makes no move without the approval of the Fifth King (or Fifth Druk Gyalpo, reflecting his position as the fifth monarch in a dynasty that was established in 1907), we can assume the seal of approval came from the top.

Cut to years of soil analysis, experimental vineyards, monsoons, delayed starts, a little thing called Covid, delayed arrival of crucial fermentation tanks, losing a winemaker just before harvest and numerous other challenges that, even in a place known as the Kingdom of happiness, include vineyard predators that can take the shape of monkeys and snakes. They kept going, with plantings beginning in 2019 through to 2023. Today there are vineyards set across a series of small plots from 800m to  to 1,500m in altitude. Down on a lower site close to the border with India is a further experimental vineyard near to a new winery, currently under construction by the ‘mindfulness city’ that is slated to open in 2029.

“It’s been almost two centuries since a new country decided to make wine for the first time,” says Mike. “The Bhutanese are insanely talented at farming, so once we had found the suitable land, we knew they would be able to grow the grapes, but we had no real idea which varieties would work best. At this stage everything is experimental. But if anywhere can pull this off, it’s Bhutan”.

The 2024 was the first bottled vintage across a number of varieties, following the 2023 vintage that was made as a single barrel blend of all the red and white grapes harvested that year, bottled as The Himalayan. One of two giant 7.57 litre bottles (the size is a nod to the size of the highest peak in the country, Gangkhar Puensum, unclimbed because it is a sacred mountain) was auctioned off in May 2025 by Bonhams, raising US$18,750. The other was presented to the King of Bhutan.

Last week, we got to try the results of the 2024 wines that are also due to go on sale in the Bhutan Wine Company’s tasting room in Thimphu later this month. There were just a handful of us around a table in Paris for this inaugural tasting – including Mike and Ann, Amayès Aouli from Bonhams auction house, journalist Chris Howard, videographer and producer David Garret (see his work on the Bhutan Wine Company here), along with advisory board member and head of public relations Christian Holthausen. We were given four whites, and three reds, part of a range of cuvées that at this stage are experimental and may change year on year as new plantings come online. As a result, I’m not giving specific tasting notes here, but can report that this is far more than a clever idea and an unusual location for wine.

One of the ways you can gauge the success of a tasting is how quickly it takes people to break off into small groups to excitedly discuss the wine. That happened here every time there was a lull between pourings, with a sense of energy flowing from the glass to the group.

The whites where all distinctive, and impressive. The first glass was of a hybrid grape, Ser Kem Traminette, that floated out of the glass with its rose petals and high spice. The result of a cross between Gewurtraminer and Joannes Seyve 23.416, it was a typically ballsy start from Mike, a man whose motto is ‘fail fast’, and who makes it clear that he distrusts any gatekeepers in wine. This was followed by Ser Kem Karp Reserve, a Sauvignon Blanc and Chenin blend that tasted of crushed rocks and salted lemon rind, then an excellent smoked citrus and slate Ser Kem Sauvignon Blanc, and finally a 100% Ser Kem Riesling, beautifully fragrant with waves of green apple and soft white pepper, with its 9g/l of residual sugar perfectly eaten by the mountain acidities (everyone around the table myself included thought it was dry). The alcohols all stood at around 13%abv, and promised big things ahead.

The reds were fragrant, with vivid fruit character – 100% Ser Kem Pinot Noir, Ser Kem Marp Reserve (Bordeaux blend, savoury, with more dried herbs spice coming through from the Cabernet and Merlot grapes than you would find down here in southwest France), and an excellent 100% Ser Kem Tempranillo. All were fermented with native yeasts, again with alcohols that stayed around 13%abv, with salinity and lift across them all, a little less consistent than the whites in this vintage where the harvest came in two weeks earlier than expected after rains, but which again showed a sense of energy and joy, and a confidence that makes it hard to believe this is the inaugural vintage in an entirely new region for viticulture.

Photos here care of Jane Anson, Mike Juergens, Amayès Aouli