Buzz
Whether you're a wine connoisseur or not, trying Phu Quoc sim wine is a must. Keep these famous spots for buying sim wine in Phu Quoc in mind.
Lost in the azure sea paradise of Phu Quoc, you'll not only be mesmerized by the island's pure beauty or its virgin forests, but also captivated by its unique delicacies. If you've ever known about dried seafood, pure fish sauce, or the fragrant pepper, today Klook will introduce you to a drink unique to Phu Quoc: sim wine – a beverage that cannot be missed in the seafood feasts of the islanders.
What Makes Phu Quoc Sim Wine Special?
Phu Quoc is the only place in the Mekong Delta region where sim trees are cultivated. This natural treasure is abundantly found in conservation forests in Ham Ninh, Duong To, Cua Duong, Cua Can, and Bai Thom.
Sim trees in Phu Quoc almost bear fruit year-round, but according to local wisdom, the spring season yields the sweetest sap, ideal for harvesting to make sim wine.
Sim is divided into two types: pink sim and black sim. Pink sim has a pink-purple color, while black sim is darker. Pink sim is mainly used for making wine due to its aromatic scent, bittersweet taste, and higher content of anthocyanins, tannins, and sugars compared to black sim.
Phu Quoc sim wine is created from ripe sim fruits soaked and fermented with high-quality sticky rice wine with an alcohol content of 40o. The finished product typically has an alcohol content ranging from 12-30o.
While ripe sim fruits are already beneficial for health when eaten raw, their medicinal properties are enhanced when soaked in wine, such as aiding digestion, reducing fatigue, improving blood circulation, slowing down the aging process, and reducing atherosclerosis.
Therefore, Phu Quoc sim wine is not only a delicious beverage but also a precious gift for friends, family, and especially suitable for the elderly.
Overview of How Phu Quoc Sim Wine is Made
A high-quality, fragrant sim wine product to the last drop undergoes several precise and meticulous stages, from selecting raw materials, determining ingredient proportions, to the fermentation period.
The first and most crucial step is selecting ripe sim fruits for wine soaking, characterized by their plumpness and bluish-purple color, ensuring a bittersweet yet refreshing taste.
Before soaking, wild sim fruits need careful processing according to the following procedure:
- Thoroughly wash and then soak the fruits in a diluted saltwater solution for 20-30 minutes to eliminate bacteria
- Remove the sim's stems
- Let them dry completely
Next, select a sturdy ceramic jar for fermenting underground after soaking, ensuring top-notch quality. If unavailable, glass or porcelain jars can serve as substitutes. Note that the soaking jar needs to be thoroughly cleaned and completely dried to prevent cloudiness.
Sticky rice wine with 40% alcohol content is suitable for soaking sim fruits, although you can reduce the alcohol concentration if you prefer milder wine.
For every 1kg of sim fruits and 1kg of sugar, layer the fruits and sugar alternatively, ensuring the sugar layer rests on top of the jar, and seal the jar tightly.
Every day, gently shake and invert the upper layer downward and vice versa to prevent oxidation and cloudiness.
After 7-10 days, transfer the wine into jars at a ratio of 1kg of sim fruits soaked in 3-5 liters of wine.
Place the soaking jars in a dry, shaded area with a temperature ideally between 20-25°C. For burying the ceramic jars, bury about 2/3 of the jar into the ground and only immerse the wine up to about 3/4 of the jar's height.
After 3 months of soaking and fermenting, you will have the finest quality Phu Quoc sim wine.
Phu Quoc Sim Wine Price Reference
The price of Phu Quoc sim wine ranges from 140,000 to 200,000 VND per 600ml bottle.
This price range is considered reasonable for a product that is both delicious and good for health. Many tourists have chosen sim wine as a gift after their trip to the pearl island.
Famous Sim Wine Shops in Phu Quoc
Currently, there are three famous and reputable sim wine shops in Phu Quoc for you to visit and shop: Bay Gao Sim Wine, Sim Son Sim Wine, and Thanh Long Sim Wine. All three top sim wine shops are recognized by the Kiên Giang Provincial Department of Health for meeting standards, quality, and food safety.
Sim wine shops offer a wide range of products made from sim fruits such as sim honey wine, sim grape wine, sim candy, sim syrup, and sim jam. All of them carry the distinctive flavor of Phu Quoc wild sim, and are perfect for buying for personal use or as gifts for any occasion.
In addition to shopping at the stores, you can also explore the sim orchard behind the scenes and enjoy some delicious sim wine from that orchard.
1. Bay Gao Sim Wine in Phu Quoc
Bay Gao sim wine is the oldest manufacturing facility on the pearl island of Phu Quoc, known to many. Mr. Mac Van Nghiem, the owner of Bay Gao sim wine facility, was also the first person to successfully process sim wine in Phu Quoc in 1997.
The Intellectual Property Office has also granted a trademark certificate for Bay Gao sim wine and protects the exclusive trademark rights of Bay Gao sim wine. Therefore, this is a point where many people visit when traveling to Phu Quoc.
Sim wine, sim grape wine, and sim honey wine are the most popular products here. Unlike sim wine brewed with sticky rice wine, sim grape wine is a product of natural fermentation using traditional manual methods to ferment all the sugars from wild sim fruits.
You can choose 14 or 29 degrees sim wine; while sim grape wine only has one level, which is 10 degrees.
Bay Gao Sim Wine Phu Quoc
- Address: 124 30/4 Street, Duong Dong Ward, Phu Quoc City, Kien Giang Province
- Price range: 150,000 – 200,000 VND/bottle
- Opening hours: 7:00 AM – 10:00 PM
2. Sim Son Sim Wine Phu Quoc
Sim Son facility is another excellent choice for you. Sim wine here is processed using a combination of manual methods and some new technologies.
Sim Son wine brand produces quite a few products from sim fruits such as sim wine, sim honey, sim syrup, sim grape wine, sim jam, sim candy. Particularly, Sim Son's packaging and design are quite beautiful.
For sim wine, Sim Son facility has two alcohol concentrations: 30 degrees and 39 degrees with different volumes. As for sim grape wine, there are both dry and sweet types with an alcohol concentration of 12 degrees.
Sim Son Sim Wine Phu Quoc
- Address: Group 1, Cua Lap Hamlet, Duong To Commune, Phu Quoc City, Kien Giang Province
- Price range: 140,000 – 200,000 VND/bottle
- Opening hours: 7:00 AM – 6:00 PM
3. Thanh Long Sim Wine Phu Quoc
A prominent name in the Phu Quoc sim wine industry is Thanh Long facility, also known as Sim Island. The special feature of this facility is the use of sim wine production technology transferred by the Tropical Biology Institute of Ho Chi Minh City.
Thanh Long facility has its own sim garden and modern wine fermentation kilns, attracting the attention of many tourists. Thanh Long sim wine has a slightly bitter taste due to being fermented with rice wine to achieve an alcohol content of up to 39 degrees. In addition to sim wine, sim jam, sim chocolate, and dried sim are other sweet products you can purchase.
Thanh Long Sim Wine Phu Quoc
- Address: Cloud Water, Duong To Commune, Phu Quoc City, Kien Giang Province
- Price range: 160,000 – 200,000 VND/bottle
- Opening hours: 7:30 AM – 6:00 PM
On the Vietnam travel map, Phu Quoc is always an attractive destination with beautiful natural scenery, diverse ecosystems, appealing specialties, and modern entertainment destinations such as Grand World Phu Quoc, Phu Quoc United Center, VinWonders Phu Quoc, or Sun World Hon Thom.
After your trip to Phu Quoc, what could be more meaningful than being able to bring back a bit of the island's flavor to your beloved ones through a bottle of Phu Quoc sim wine with its sweet, refreshing taste, right!
Don't forget to visit Klook Vietnam Blog to learn more about solo travel experiences in Phu Quoc, 4-day 3-night Phu Quoc travel itinerary, review of a 3-day 2-night trip to Phu Quoc, check out the list of delicious eateries in Phu Quoc and many other interesting information about traveling to the pearl island of Phu Quoc.
Don't miss the chance to enjoy Phu Quoc sim wine, #teamKlook!
