A successful pairing of Old and New World

SINGAPORE'S wine community is accustomed to welcoming European vintners on their annual visits to promote their new vintages, but a visit from a Napa Valley vintner is still a rarity. So when no less than the vice-president of Napa's famed Opus One, Laurent Delassus, made a brief stop in Singapore while on his Far East tour earlier this week, it was a refreshing change - he brought not so much a change of scene as a different point of view.

Opus One, as most wine lovers now know, is one of the icons of Napa Valley. It was a brilliant and high-profile piece of match-making (and wine-making) between the two m…