Bhutan Wine Company

The Thimphu tasting room and wine bar is where the company sells most of its Ser Kem wines, grown at nine vineyard sites across Bhutan. The interest is real: in April 2025 a Bonhams online sale of the 2023 vintage sold 21 lots for $74,250, and Jancis Robinson MW sits on the company's advisory board. It fits into a guided day in Thimphu.

The bar doubles as an education space, and its team trained at 67 Pall Mall in Singapore before opening. The Ser Kem range covers whites, a 2025 rosé made from 100% Pinot Noir and reds; in Dzongkha, the house explains, Karp means white and Marp red, the names of its blends. The house says its 2024 Pinot Noir used native Bhutanese yeast and Bhutanese oak.

The bar keeps daily hours: from 12:30pm Sunday to Thursday and from 2:30pm on Friday and Saturday, as last published in May 2025, so check locally before going. Tuesday is no longer a dry day in Bhutan. The company says its vines are picked in summer and fall; autumn, from late September or early October to late November, brings bright, sunny days after the monsoon.

Hours as published in May 2025: Sunday to Thursday 12:30pm to 10:00pm, Friday and Saturday 2:30pm to 12:00am. Ser Kem bottles on the company's list run from $80 for the rosé to $500 for the 2024 Pinot Noir, and several 2024 wines are sold out. Tourists paying in US dollars pay a Sustainable Development Fee of US$100 per person per day, at that rate until 31 August 2027, plus a one-off US$40 visa fee. English is widely understood.

The tasting room is on Yarden Lam in Chubachhu, Thimphu. Drukair and Bhutan Airlines fly into Paro, about 47 km by road from the bar. Every tourist must travel with a licensed guide, including on the drive from Paro International Airport, so ask the guide or tour operator to add the bar to a Thimphu day. Self-drive hire is not possible in Bhutan; hotels can arrange a car.

Bhutan Wine Company is a wine producer with nine vineyard sites across Bhutan and a tasting room and wine bar on Yarden Lam, Chubachhu, in Thimphu. Americans Mike Juergens and Ann Cross founded it in 2018 with Bhutanese partners and planted its opening vineyard at Yusipang in 2019; commercial wines followed from the 2024 harvest. The vineyards are closed to visitors.

The founders first came to Bhutan to run a marathon. Mike Juergens, a senior partner at Deloitte who leads its winery practice, wrote a white paper proposing a wine industry, and the government, which donated the land, asked him to lead it. The 2023 vintage filled a single barrel; of its two 7.57-litre bottles, named The Himalayan, one went to the King of Bhutan and one sold for $18,750.

The company says its vineyards run from about 500 feet to 9,150 feet. The top site, Ser Bhum, at about 9,150 feet, sits on the road from Thimphu to the Dorchalu Pass, where Sauvignon Blanc and Cabernet Franc do well, the house says. Yusipang, at 8,800 feet on the road from Thimphu to Punakha, is farmed organically; Bajo lies in the Punakha Valley at around 4,000 feet, and the warmer east suits Cabernet Sauvignon and Syrah.

The vineyards are closed to drop-in visitors, but one can be seen from the road: Norzenthang, planted in 2023, is visible, the company says, from the road from Trashigang to the GorTshalu vineyard in eastern Bhutan. Vineyard visits have come only by private arrangement, such as the winery tours and private tastings sold with some Bonhams lots in 2025 and a 2023 harvest trip for wine-club members.