W Taipei’s Yen Bar has introduced the Sip wine tasting card, which gives patrons an easy and affordable way to sample wines from leading vineyards. The Sip room, which has a view of Taipei 101, is home to Yen’s new Enomatic wine serving system, a machine that allows bottles of wine to be opened and protected from oxidation.
Guests use their pre-paid Sip card to dispense wine from the Enomatic, with amounts ranging from a 10ml taste to a full 150ml glass. The machine can hold up to 12 wines at a time. The selection will change each month. August’s list features libations from vineyards in France, Spain, Italy and Chile. Highlights include Domaine Chanson’s Beaune 1er Cru Clos des Mouches and Chateau La Lagune’s Moulin La Lagune from France and the Bordeaux-style Sassicaia, one of Italy’s most renowned wines.
Yen Bar is located on the top floor of W Taipei and features sweeping views of the city. In addition to the Enomatic machine’s offerings, the bar also serves more than 80 kinds of whisky, 90 cocktails and 100 kinds of wine, along with tapas inspired by Asian cuisine.
Photo Courtesy of W Taipei
The Sip tasting card is priced at NT$500 and up, and prices for each wine start at NT$70 for 10ml. Call (02) 7703-8887 or visit www.wtaipei.com/baratyen for more information.
What was the population of Taiwan when the first Negritos arrived? In 500BC? The 1st century? The 18th? These questions are important, because they can contextualize the number of babies born last month, 6,523, to all the people on Taiwan, indigenous and colonial alike. That figure represents a year on year drop of 3,884 babies, prefiguring total births under 90,000 for the year. It also represents the 26th straight month of deaths exceeding births. Why isn’t this a bigger crisis? Because we don’t experience it. Instead, what we experience is a growing and more diverse population. POPULATION What is Taiwan’s actual population?
For the past five years, Sammy Jou (周祥敏) has climbed Kinmen’s highest peak, Taiwu Mountain (太武山) at 6am before heading to work. In the winter, it’s dark when he sets out but even at this hour, other climbers are already coming down the mountain. All of this is a big change from Jou’s childhood during the Martial Law period, when the military requisitioned the mountain for strategic purposes and most of it was off-limits. Back then, only two mountain trails were open, and they were open only during special occasions, such as for prayers to one’s ancestors during Lunar New Year.
A key feature of Taiwan’s environmental impact assessments (EIA) is that they seldom stop projects, especially once the project has passed its second stage EIA review (the original Suhua Highway proposal, killed after passing the second stage review, seems to be the lone exception). Mingjian Township (名間鄉) in Nantou County has been the site of rising public anger over the proposed construction of a waste incinerator in an important agricultural area. The township is a key producer of tea (over 40 percent of the island’s production), ginger and turmeric. The incinerator project is currently in its second stage EIA. The incinerator
You would never believe Yancheng District (鹽埕) used to be a salt field. Today, it is a bustling, artsy, Kowloon-ish “old town” of Kaohsiung — full of neon lights, small shops, scooters and street food. Two hundred years ago, before Japanese occupiers developed a shipping powerhouse around it, Yancheng was a flat triangle where seawater was captured and dried to collect salt. This is what local art galleries are revealing during the first edition of the Yancheng Arts Festival. Shen Yu-rung (沈裕融), the main curator, says: “We chose the connection with salt as a theme. The ocean is still very near, just a