France’s new TendreBulle Gay Vin – that’s Tender Bubbles Gay Wine for non-French speakers – was launched this month. Yes, you read it correctly – I have to admit I did a double take when I first saw it. I mean, how exactly can a wine be gay? Well, TendreBulle, the first French wine specifically targeting the gay community is a sparkling rosé from Languedoc-Roussillon. The bottle shows two heads in profile facing each other, above the words ‘Gay Vin’, and the letters G and L, for gay and lesbian, appear on the capsule. “I thought it would be fun to make a happy wine, something festive, as in happy which is what gay used to mean in the Middle Ages,” says Jacques-Edouard Pailles, the wine’s creator, who was thwarted by AOC regulations from making a rosé he wanted to call ‘the gay wine of Malpierre’ after one of the local place names. About 13,000 bottles of TendreBulle have already been made, and are available by order for $73.90 per bottle from Domaine de Boyer. This wine follows on the launch of a Spanish red, Mundo Gay, produced by Bodegas y Viñedos Robeal in Spain’s Roa de Duero, which has a slightly different approach. Bodegas created the wine as a homage to the gay community, rather than to target it exclusively and possibly alienate non-gay drinkers along the way. Their wine is made from Tempranillo grapes and sells at $246.30 a bottle.

’Tis the season for relaxing and generally having fun – this summer, the HK Game Club is bringing a live poker experience to the HKSAR with free weekly poker tournaments at various private clubs. Players will battle it out to collect points in the league and so generate their own ranking in the HKGC. Club Veto (3/F, Hilltop Plaza, 49 Hollywood Road, Central, 2201 4585) is currently hosting its second season of the Chivas x HKGC Poker League every Monday night at 8pm (culminating in a final tournament on August 25), where members can enjoy a free bottle of Beerlao Lager, and players compete for the top prize of two return TurboJet tickets to Macau. A couple of minutes walk away, I-Lounge (38 Stanley Street, 2868 4218) is hosting a Six-Handed Poker League every Thursday night at 8pm, until the final on August 28. Prizes to be won each night include bottles of wine, chips sets and USB memory sticks. Poker nights are open to anyone, and every night’s winner and the top point leaders in the series will qualify for the respective finals, where prizes are even more fabulous, ranging from Thai massages to $5000 travel coupons. Visit www.hkgameclub.com for more details.

And now for the new bars opening in Central this month: Sugardolls (54 D’Aguilar Street, Lan Kwai Fong, 2980 3687), a modern bar with a 1950s American diner theme, is planning to welcome customers by the end of this month. Open for breakfast, lunch and dinner, it is starting off with a simple menu (to be expanded in time) of pancakes that come in stacks of 2, 6, or 12, different sized hash browns, and their main item – French Dip baguettes with a choice of beef, turkey, and vegetarian. But it is the night-time serving of libations that will be the main attraction – bartender, Prabhat Chatterjee, or James, as he prefers to be called (“I’m a Bond fan, that’s why!!”), has a full array of self-created cocktails and drinks up his sleeve in addition to the classic cocktails and standard drinks on offer. Some of the signature cocktails include his personal spin on the classic Mai Tai ($70), the gin-based Singapore Sling ($70), the vodka-based Zombie ($70), and the Batida ($75), a rum-based Brazilian concoction

Up in SoHo, The Real Bread Café (14 Shelley Street, SoHo, 2810 9326), due to open very soon (if it isn’t already), is an all-in-one bakery, deli, and café by day and a wine bar and restaurant by night. The first of many branches the company hope to open in Hong Kong, this café’s concept, which reflects a current trend in the UK, is about going back to basics with the way we eat. The menu is designed around what the company believes to be the staple products of life: bread and wine. Thus, most dishes on the menu are bread-inspired, such as the German rye bread with German sausages, or the Italian platter with grilled artichokes, parma ham, mozzarella, and a choice of focaccia or ciabatta bread. The café aims to provide fresh, simple, wholesome meals that a typical cosmopolitan Hong Konger might need. For the evenings, there is also an extensive drink list that includes beers and wines from all over the world, as well as a full dinner menu.

Another establishment to consider heading to on a night out is the newly taken over Chill Out Sports Bar (G/F, 31 Staunton Street, Soho, 2869 6555), a cozy little place jam-packed with English sporting memorabilia and decked out with two plasma TVs and a massive projector screen. What makes this bar unique is its menus – not only does it boast a wide range of snacks (from a seafood platter ($68) to its famous twice-fried Korean chicken ($58)), it also has a menu of drinking games on weekdays for customers to choose from. Games include Dragon, which involves blowing cards off beer bottles, and Titanic, where players try not to sink a floating ship inside a beer glass while pouring in liquor from a shot glass. All gaming equipment is free of charge, and while certain drinks are recommended for certain games, everything is totally up to the customer. Also check out the wide range of daily drinks promotions, from cocktail nights to Heineken Power Hours.