Words & Photography by Aurélien Foucault

September 26th, 2026 was a special day for the Ho Chi Minh City wine and spirits scene. For the first time, we had a large-scale wine and spirits event bringing together people from across the industry, while ticking two important boxes: homegrown and independent.

Phuong Maxy built Ngonista to tell the stories of the people behind the world of wine and food. After only a few months of its launch, working hand in hand with Vietnam Sommeliers Association, she managed to successfully put together this event, combining local spirit producers, wine, food and sake distributors, an industry panel (more on this below), and a presentation by ProWine Asia.

This was a full-blown celebration of what Phuong pitches as Vietnam’s first media platform dedicated to premium wine and fine dining, and for Phuong herself, named Writer of the Year at the 2025 Women in Wine & Spirits Awards.

Three Distillers Redefining Vietnamese Spirits

The first session handed the floor to the founders of three spirits companies, each with their own vision and their own story.

Mầm Distillery, Presented by Madame Mầm

Mầm started from a small local bar around 2010, before formally entering the market as its own distillery brand in 2019, based in Hoàng Su Phì, a mountainous district of Hà Giang province on Vietnam’s northern border. The distillery now makes more than twenty flavours from native fruits and flowers unique to the region: jujube eau de vie, apricot liqueur, kaffir lime spirit among them, and its jujube eau de vie won a Gold Medal at the 2025 Concours International de Lyon. Mầm says it now works with more than 500 distributors nationwide.

The pitch, presented at Ngonista’s conference by Madame Mầm, was all about proving how one’s passion could turn into a true Vietnamese success story, and showing that Vietnam’s own orchards and hillsides were rich in flavour and personality.

Rượu Làng, Presented by Phoebe Trần

RƯỢU LÀNG makes rượu gạo, Vietnam’s traditional rice liquor, out of Tân Lập commune in Vĩnh Phúc province, north of Hanoi, under the name The Village Château Company.

The founder, Phoebe Trần, comes from a background in top tech companies such as Google and Facebook, but decided to start a new life as the founder of Rượu Làng, with the ambition of putting Vietnam’s traditional drink on the world map. She rightfully noted that Scotland has whisky, Japan-sake, Korea-soju, China-baijiu… and that it was time for Vietnam to put its own drink on the map.

They picked up a Silver medal for their Classic expression (and a Bronze for their Red Dragon Fruit) at the 2025 London Spirits Competition, and followed it with a Double Gold and two further Gold medals at the 2025 SIP Awards in the United States, a blind, consumer-judged competition – a result Vietcetera described as the first time a Vietnamese rice-liquor brand had reached that level, proving that rượu, long dismissed as a village drink, can travel as far as any imported spirit. They now have a large range of spirits, from the traditional rượu to cocoa-infused spirits.

Về Để Đi, Presented by Dr. Michael Rosen

Michael Rosen’s answer to “Is there a whisky distillery in Vietnam?” was to build one.

The elegant New Yorker is a believer in authenticity and transparency, and his whisky is the product of his vision. Về Để Đi, whose name translates to “to return in order to depart,” sits on the outskirts of Hanoi and became the country’s first whisky distillery when it opened in 2020, co-founded with Mikey Brenker and run today by master distiller Edward Tiege, previously of Copalli Rum in Belize.

Brenker has put the ambition this way: “we are joining and hopefully leading the fore of New World distilleries, developing new ideas and new waves of whisky for the rest of the world.” Alongside its whisky range, they distill an indigenous corn whisky, a gin built on local botanicals, and a creme de cacao made with Marou‘s Lâm Đồng cacao nibs. Dr. Rosen argues that Vietnam’s hot summers and cold winters accelerate maturation, allowing the spirit to interact with the wood much more quickly than in cooler traditional whisky-producing climates.
I was genuinely impressed with their Founder’s Choice single malt, which was simply delicious.

Vietnam through the ProWine lens

Renee Zhao, Marketing and Communications Director for ProWine Asia, came from Shanghai to Vietnam to give the audience a trade-fair view of where Vietnam sits against its neighbours.

She also helped the room understand ProWine’s mission and the impact these trade fairs have on the global wine and spirits industry, and the growing importance wine producers worldwide are now placing on Vietnam.

It was an important sign of recognition for Ngonista to have ProWine there, showing confidence and trust from a major industry player – and showing how ProWine has built a large network across Asia, and how it cares about supporting that network and meeting local actors. It’s through work on the ground like this that relationships are built, and it’s great to see Vietnam and Ngonista get that kind of attention.

The Panel: A Market Writing Its Own Rules

The closing panel, moderated by Lê Hoàng Khánh Vi, Vice President of the Vietnam Sommelier Association, brought together Nimmi Malhotra (Asia Correspondent, The Drinks Business), Mary Vu (Mad Wine Bar) and Jack In Bartender, Cocktail Judge & Influencer, for a conversation about the five years that reshaped how the country drinks. Click here for a summary of the panel.

A Successful First Step to a Lively Future

The throughline of Ngonista’s first conference was the same all day. Mầm’s fruit spirits, Rượu Làng’s rice liquor and Về Để Đi’s whisky are not adaptations of somebody else’s tradition – they are a homegrown one being written in real time, on the same stage as a bar scene and a wine trade building their own audience.

By becoming the loudspeaker for the voice of the region, Ngonista has proven its relevance and its long-awaited necessity, both within and outside of Vietnam, and this is only the very beginning.

We wish Phuong Maxy and the Ngonista family continued success, as Vietnam is building its own path to a mature international wine and spirits market.

CELLAR BRIDGE | cellarbridge.com | editor@cellarbridge.com | Words & Photography by Aurélien Foucault