Grape Wall of China

Posted by admin at June 26th, 2009

By Jim Boyce

Tommy Lam is the organizer of the China National Sommelier Competition 2009, which will hold its finals on July 7 in Shanghai, and the junior sommelier series set for Beijing on July 5 and Shanghai on July 6. Lam holds an MBA and Wine MBA, is involved in wine programs in Singapore, Hong Kong, and Tianjin, and is a certified wine specialist, sommelier, and WSET trainer (see more details at bottom of page here). I asked him about the upcoming finals, about the state of sommeliers in China, and about the unique challenges that this country presents for wine service.

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Every year for the past decade, stories have come out about how China’s wine market is taking off. Why did you pick this year to hold the China sommelier competition?

The China market has attracted many people who sell wines, but education has not been high on the agenda in most cases.

Improving wine service quality in Singapore became a major part of my work after I completed the Bordeaux Wine MBA in 2002. In terms of China, in early 2007 I started to teach wine courses as part of a hospitality management program at Tianjin University of Commerce and started the first sommelier class there as a trial program. In 2007, I also started a three-level sommelier certification course at the Vocational Training Council (VTC) in Hong Kong. I then heard that the ASI Asia-Oceanic Sommelier Competition was to be held in November 2009. In response, I called on several professional sommeliers to discuss raising the quality of wine services in China and the result is the China national sommelier competition.

What is the difference between the national competition and the junior sommelier event?

The national competition is for practicing sommeliers who have reached a certain skill level. These skills include knowledge of the English language since the winner will have to use it for the Asia-Oceania competition to be held in Osaka.

The junior session is to provide an opportunity to those who are interested in or who have just started to work in wine service. The program is in both Chinese and English, though the written exam is in English.

I am sad to say the response to the junior session has not been encouraging, as the number of people who have signed up is still low.

What are the three things sommeliers need to improve most in China?

One is their English language skills, since thiswill help them to learn more about wine and help them better serve customers.

A second is the need for proper sources of wine knowledge. Many education programs are conducted by wine importers or distributors, but few have trainers with adequate knowledge. Proper wine education should be provided by outside sources. Having said this, wine distributors and brand owners play a very important role in providing products and financial support to wine education.

A third is the willingness to stay in a position long enough to gain management skills. Many sommeliers jump from job to job, but by staying in one spot they can gain experience, knowledge, and skills as well as possible vocational training that can lead to jobs such as cellar master or food and beverage director. These days, having a food and beverage manager with a background in wine services is highly valued by hotel and restaurant chains.

Is there anything unique to China and its culture that make being a sommelier different here?

China’s wine market is lifting off, thus sommeliers need to quickly educate themselves about wine while facing a consumer base that has not experienced a gradual knowledge and appreciation of wine. This makes wine knowledge and customer handling skills equally important. Sommmeliers also face the challenge of knowing about hundreds of China beverages and spirits as well as a vast range of Chinese and international cuisines.

For Chinese who are new to wine, what are three things you would tell them to remember when ordering wine at a restaurant?

One, look at mid-range wines from traditional wine-producing countries. Two, trust and support China’s own developed brands, such as Changyu and Great Wall. Three, become friends with the sommelier when you go to restaurants.

Posted by admin at June 25th, 2009

An offshoot of the China National Sommelier Competition, a ‘junior sommelier‘ session will be held in Beijing on July 5 and in Shanghai on July 6. According to the Asia Wine Institute, it is aimed at “less experienced wine service staff, or simply F&B professionals looking to upgrade their knowledge in wine service.” The event involves a three-hour seminar that covers everything from wine serving skills to pronunciation of wine terms. It will be held from 1 PM and costs RMB200. To sign up, download this form and send it to Francesca Xu at Francesca.xu@asia-businessgroup.com /010-5828-7720.

Oregon wine tasting events are few and far between in this city, so this Friday offers a good chance to try vino from the northwest United States. Sequoia Cafe on Guanghua Lu in Beijing will present five wines from Oregon, including a pinot noir, a pinot gris, and a Sokol Blosser Evolution that is made with nine grape varieties. The tasting starts at 6:30 PM, costs RMB150, and includes snacks. Call Frank Siegel at 13701178073 to reserve a spot.

Arguably the best annual wine event for consumers in Beijing, the Hilton wine fair is slated for November 9. The trade portion of the event will be in the morning, with consumers getting a shot at trying hundreds of wines during the afternoon. I hope that, unlike last year, Sopexa hosts its Bordeaux Grand Cru tasting on a different day.

See also:
- The Hilton Food & Wine Experience: Ten thoughts

Posted by admin at June 25th, 2009

By Brian Yao

Thanks to a friend, I had the chance to talk to the agency for Great Wall winery and taste one of its products. The purpose was to help find a proper marketing strategy for the wine Chateau Sun God.

Five people attended the session, all of them wine consumers in Beijing with a history of drinking imported wines for at least one year. The agency asked us about a half dozen questions, such as which wines we have purchased, how often we buy wines and where, and so on.

We then tried the wine without knowing anything about it. The wine is ruby red in color, with a nose of blackberry and a hint of green pepper. It is medium-bodied and seems to have a high alcohol level. I consider it a fruity wine made in a new world style, and to be quite simple and easy to drink. In fact, we all agreed it is a simple drinkable wine and estimated its worth at about RMB100. One person in our group, a Bordeaux wine drinker, said there are many Bordeaux wines priced at RMB100 to RMB200 in China that are better than the wine we tried.

The host asked us to forget about the pricing. He wanted to know if we would buy this wine, either to drink or as a gift. As none of us were impressed by the wine, we answered no. He also showed us two ads for Chinese wineries, neither of which we liked.

After a long discussion, the host revealed the bottle of wine: Great Wall Chateau Sun God Cabernet / Merlot 2005.

Posted by admin at June 23rd, 2009

AFP reports that a Chinese company has bought a portion of Bordeaux vineyard (my highlights):

A Chinese firm has taken a majority stake in a Bordeaux vineyard, the latest move by the emerging Asian giant into the world of French wine, a company who advised on the deal said Sunday.

HongKong A and A International, a holding company, paid an undisclosed sum for the stake in Chateau Richelieu….

The Chinese company has previously specialised in the areas of golf, property and luxury clothing….

The development marks the second foothold gained by a Chinese firm in the French wine industry, after the purchase in January 2008 by property group Longhai International Trading of Chateau Latour-Laguens, also for an undisclosed sum.

What does this mean for China? More Bordeaux in a country where that wine already dominates. Check. Entry in the market by another company that apparently has no background in wine. Check. Even more people in this country drinking wine that doesn’t match most food here and that is usually considered too tannic by newcomers? Check.

With all the cash on hand in China, perhaps this is just the start of a buying spree that will result in one of our April Fool jokes coming true.

Posted by admin at June 17th, 2009

The jury for the qualifying rounds of the China National Sommelier Competition, by the Association de la Sommellerie Internationale (ASI), has chosen eight candidates, rather than an originally planned six, to participate in the finals in Shanghai on July 7. According to a press release for the event, the candidates are:

• Frank Hao – The Opposite House, Beijing
• Lin Chun Ke – The Opposite House, Beijing
• Leo Jin – Pudong Shangri-La, Shanghai
• Ma Jun – Les Millesimes, Beijing
• Hans Qu – Intercontinental, Shenzhen
• Jason Shi – China World Hotel, Beijing
• Vivian Tian – Kee Club, Shanghai
• Diego Zhang – Intercontinental Puxi, Shanghai

The finalists will face not only food and wine pairing, decanting, blind tasting, and written tests, but also the public: “the lunch service that will be open to public, and those interested can purchase a ticket to partake as guest judges….” The winner will represent China at the Best Sommelier of Asia-Oceania competition in Japan later this year. For more details, see the Asia Wine Institute site.

On top of this, a “Junior Sommelier Seminar and Competition” will be held on July 5 and July 6 in both Shanghai and Beijing. I will soon post more details on this.

Posted by admin at June 15th, 2009

By Jim Boyce

I recently tagged along to Chengdu with a group of writers as Torres president Miguel A Torres donated RMB500,000 to build a school to replace one severely damaged during last year’s earthquake in Sichuan. We also tried a new Muscat wine called Symphony made via cooperation between Torres and Shanxi-based winery Grace as well as two wines from Ningxia-based winery Silver Heights that are distributed by Torres China (tasting notes to come). Before the event, I sat down with Miguel Torres to ask a few question about wine and China.

How did the wine project between Torres and Grace happen and why make a white wine in a country where red wine dominates the market?

Grace was interested in doing something and I said it was up to my daughter, Mireia, the technical director for Torres. She went to Shanxi, explored the vineyard for a few days, and fell in love with the Muscat. This first batch is very small, just over 10,000 bottles.

Are there plans for more cooperation?

Yes, we had good teamwork with Grace. We will probably follow up with a red wine. We haven’t picked the grape yet.

What differences did you find when making wine in China as opposed to other places where you have operations?

A very important difference is that the soil, the land, from which the grapes come do not belong to the winery.  It is usually leased by the state to the farmers, and that can make things difficult. We had to make a very precise selection of grapes, and even used hand selection, to ensure quality.

Another issue is communication. There are people in the winery who speak English and we employ 150 Chinese at Torres, so we are able to translate in Mandarin. But I tell my foreign staff members that they need to know some Mandarin. I have been studying it for two years. I have had few results so far, but I keep trying!

One reader from Twitter, SbonnerABV, asks whether Torres’ focus is on entry-level or premium wines in China?

We are seeing good sales of the better wines, both the Spanish and the Chilean. The trend seems to be toward better wines.

How does China fit into Torres’ global business?

China is still a small market compared to the U.S. and other countries, but we consider that it will be a great market in the future. What is the future? Maybe in ten years. In any case, China has been growing steadily as a wine market over the past decade.

What has been the biggest challenge for Torres since setting up in China in the 1990s?

The biggest challenge was in the late 1990s, a few years after we set up, when the company was losing a lot of money. Some board members said that maybe we should withdraw from China, but we ultimately decided to continue. Today we have made that money back and been profitable over the past few years.

And the biggest success?

It was nice that our wine Mas La Plana picked up the best wine award from the Chinese edition of Food and Wine magazine. Tonight is also a big moment, because we will be able to present this new wine, Symphony, from Shanxi.

In its early days in China, Torres experimented with making wine. What prevented it from continuing the project?

In the mid-1990s, we had a small bottling plant west of Beijing. Bottling here in China helped avoid part of the wine duty. We also gained some viticulture experience. We had about one hectare with 10 grape varieties. The problem was that the bees and the people working at the vineyard consumed a lot of the grapes, so we didn’t have much left! But we did some experiments and found the results OK. Not terrific, but OK. Now, with Grace, we have gained more experience and have this new wine.

You have been coming to China for more than a decade. How has it changed?

I have been coming to China every year since 1994, so that is about 15 times. I also came to Chengdu about ten years ago, after visiting Shanghai and Beijing, and found it a classic city with electric buses, narrow streets, and local character. Now, a decade later, there seems to be nothing but construction and I wonder, Where is the old city!?

Posted by admin at June 10th, 2009

Barefoot outside Beijing

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By Jim Boyce

What is one major challenge of selling vintage port in China? Ironically, for a country that has a love affair with La Feet (er, Lafite), the problem with port might be too much sole, writes Elin McCoy in this Bloomberg piece:

The best vintage ports are largely made the old-fashioned way, by barefooted people stomping on the grapes in traditional open granite vats called lagares….

[Port producer] Quinta do Noval sells well in Japan, sales director Aymeric de Gironde tells me, but so far, interest in China hasn’t taken off.

One problem may be those feet.

Rupert Symington, whose extended clan has been selling port since the 19th century and owns eight port houses, pours me a taste of 2007 Quinta do Vesuvio and explains.

“A few years ago, at a Shanghai trade tasting, our sales manager showed a video of foot-treading the grapes,” he says. “After seeing it, none of the retailers wanted to taste the wines. We didn’t think about cultural differences and the disgust factor.”

The first thing that popped into my mind: Watching Chinese stomp grapes during a harvest festival at Bolongbao winery just outside Beijing a few years ago. An exception to the rule?

I asked Ma Huiqin, a contributor to this blog and a professor at China Agricultural University. Said Ma: “In China, people find it fun to stomp grapes during the harvest festival, but I doubt these grapes are used to make wine or juice.” She added: “I agree that if you showed that video to consumers, they would not want to drink that port. In fact, some people even want, or expect, the grapes to be washed before they are made into wine and are surprised it is not done.” (Hat tip to maoxian)

Meanwhile, Reuters reports that 8th Estate Winery is making wine in Hong Kong using imported frozen grapes. “The thawing, fermentation, aging and blending of the grapes takes place at the winery housed in a high-rise warehouse, which has just released its first batch of reds, whites and ice wines,” states Reuters.

The winery’s whites range from Sauvignon Blancs to Chardonnays. The reds include Merlots and Cabernet Sauvignons.

[Winery director Lysanne] Tusar said all their grapes for 2007 came from Washington state in the United States. For 2008, the grapes were from Italy.

The 8th Estate has so far produced 100,000 bottles, of which 60,000 have been sold. The rest are being aged.

Since the wines are only distributed to local restaurants and hotels, the winery uses no sulfates or preservatives, which Tusar says gives the wine a distinctive flavor.

Posted by admin at June 8th, 2009

American brewer Dogfish Head has cracked an ancient Chinese secret. According to John Roach at National Geographic News, the brewery has created a beverage “similar to one made in China some 9,000 years ago.”

Sam Calagione of the Dogfish Head brewery in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, used a recipe that included rice, honey, and grape and hawthorn fruits. He got the formula from archaeologists [including Patrick McGovern] who derived it from the residues of pottery jars found in the late Stone Age village of Jiahu in northern China.”

The brew – described as falling somewhere among beer, mead, wine, and cider – is called Chateau Jiahu and follows in the footsteps of another collaboration between Calagione and McGovern, Midas Touch Golden Elixir, which is based on evidence of alcohol found in a 2700-year-old tomb in Turkey.

Mike Gerhart, Dogfish Head’s distillery manager, aimed to copy ancient Chinese brewing methods:

To get the fermentation started, McGovern imported a mold cake—traditionally used in making Chinese rice wines—from a colleague in Beijing. Gerhart mashed the cake into the rice. Once that became “funky and began to grow,” he added other ingredients, including water, honey, grapes, hawthorn fruit, and chrysanthemum flowers.

“We also turned up the brew kettle much higher than we ever would today—we know back then they would have had some type of earthen pot with a fire burning directly below it—to replicate those flavors we know formed, somewhat burnt and caramelized,” he said.

To comply with U.S. federal brewing regulations, Gerhart had to add barley malt, though he said he mashed and fermented out most of the barley flavor.

And how does it taste? You can get all the details here.

Meanwhile, Jim Koch, founder of U.S. brewery Samuel Adams, is quoted in this article as saying “beer is the new wine” and that it is a better match for many of the globe’s cuisines, including that of China:

If you ask Koch, the cuisines that are popular today— like those from Mexico, Morocco, China, and India, to name a few—are beer cuisines. The reason? He says those kinds of foods need the malt in beer to cut through the spices in the dishes.

“They’re big—they overwhelm wines,” Koch explained. “They need big, flavorful liquids to pair with them.”

… he says, people are beginning to see that beer has all the dignity, variety, and drinkability of wine. In fact, Koch says, beer simply goes better with food than wine does.

Well, not all Chinese cuisine is spicy, but point taken.

Posted by admin at June 5th, 2009

By Jim Boyce

Torres president Miguel A Torres visited Chengdu in China’s Sichuan province earlier this week to donate RMB500,000 for the construction of a new school to replace one severely damaged during last May’s earthquake. Construction of the school – Wangcang Fuqing County Torres Hope Primary School – is slated to begin this month and finish in September. This is one of numerous schools built around the world by the Miguel Torres Foundation.

Torres spoke in Mandarin at the event, which featured local entertainment, including a mask dance and a hand shadow performance. It also included a tasting of Symphony, a Muscat wine made in cooperation with Chinese producer Grace Vineyard.

On Monday, I will post an interview I did with Miguel Torres last Wednesday as well as tasting notes for Symphony.

Note: Pictured below is Miguel Torres with Alberto Fernandez, head of Torres China.

Posted by admin at June 3rd, 2009

Some picks from recent China-related wine news…

Chinese are a growing player in the world of wine as consumers, but according to the San Francisco Chronicle, they also helped get Californian wine off the ground, so to speak. From an article titled, ” California wine industry started with Chinese workers“:

Old newspaper articles and other 19th-century accounts show hundreds of Chinese workers in both Napa and Sonoma counties.

Many were farmers who brought their agricultural skills to the industry, helping establish vines and working in cellars….

A 1967 paper by a Napa school official on file at the Napa County Historical Society records that when rains turned the 1887 grape harvest into a muddy mess, keeping wagons out, Chinese workers waded in barefoot and hauled out the grapes.

But 19th-century Chinese in California faced fierce discrimination, including laws banning them from owning property and campaigns urging farmers not to hire them. In 1882, Congress passed an immigration ban on Chinese. Populations dwindled and rural Chinatowns disappeared as workers headed to cities.

Meanwhile, the Wine Spectator writes about a report that finds as world wine consumption drops, China offers the greatest potential for growth:

People are drinking wine at a slower rate, and the global recession appears to have accelerated the trend. Worldwide per-capita wine consumption fell for the third consecutive year in 2008, and is projected to fall even further, at least until early in the next decade….

Much of the blame can be placed on the mature wine markets of the European Union, where lifestyle changes have been a major factor in the decline…. For Europeans with increasingly fast-paced lifestyles, soft drinks, juice and bottled water have taken over important roles at drinking occasions, particularly among younger drinkers. In 1980, France and Italy combined for 45 percent of global wine consumption, but by last year, their aggregate share was down to 24 percent….

The United States still represents tremendous potential for the world wine market—Americans consumed an average of only 9 liters per-capita last year, compared to 51 liters and 44 liters, respectively, for the French and Italians. Canada, Chile, South Africa and Australia have all enjoyed steady consumption growth also, as have the emerging markets of India, Taiwan, South Korea and Norway. But China will probably account for much of the future growth in global wine consumption, as the Chinese drink less than a bottle of wine per person annually.

And at a micro level, ABC reports that although Australian wine exports are down 14 percent, China remains among the bright spots:

An Australian Wine and Brandy Corporation report says the value of Australian wine exports fell 14 per cent in the year ending April 2009….

The United Kingdom accounted for more than half of that decline.

The report says the three Asian markets of Hong Kong, China and Japan continued to be the growth centres for Australian wine exports.

China recorded the largest growth in value, with an increase of $30 million.

Posted by admin at June 1st, 2009

By Maggie Rauch

The city of Kunming, capital of Yunnan (South of the Clouds) province, sits at 1,900 meters (about 6,200 feet). One day that might mean interesting things for wine making, but right now it just means that the city is home to China’s national high-altitude training center for Olympic athletes. That base, bizarrely enough, is also home to one of the coolest hidden places to buy and consume wine in China.

The Haigeng National Training Base is about a 20-minute drive from the city center, a stone’s throw from Dianchi Lake, China’s sixth largest inland body of water, on the side opposite Kunming’s Western Hills. Until a few months ago, the first sign you could see of Haigeng from the road was a drab cement water tower that looked like the kind of place where one might brew performance-enhancing cocktails for weightlifters and swimmers.

Since being taken over by an American businessman who built a miniature golf course on the site, the water tower has been painted a much more playful bright yellow and transformed into one of the coolest places in China to uncork a bottle of wine. The tower is the centerpiece of the new Hello! Haigeng Mini Golf Park, which has a big restaurant on the first floor and a tiki bar on the second floor patio.

You enter the wine cellar–which I guess is technically a wine tower–with the permission of the proprietor, from a door next to the tiki bar’s VIP cabanas. Inside, brick walls, hardwood flooring and soft lighting give the place a cool and surprisingly rustic vibe. Sit on one of the cushioned benches and order a Syrah, and you might forget that you’re above one of China’s first mini golf parks, in the place where its top divers and soccer players train, inside a bright yellow water tower. Now sip your Syrah, remember where you are, and think about how surreal it is.

Edward Knapp, the North Carolinian who owns the place, is a designer and builder who specializes in using reclaimed materials. He says the tower was originally slated to be his office, but he decided on a whim to turn into into a wine bar. He stocks it with orders from the German superstore chain Metro, which carries wine from all around the world. He says he’s a little unsure how to market the place–it can fit about 12 people, and due to some slightly shaky ladder climbing involved with getting in and out, and the lack of a fire escape, he can’t have just anyone up there getting smashed unsupervised.

For now, the only way to get in is with his permission and with a helpful wine stewardess who will keep your glass full. And if you’re really nice, Knapp might let you up into yet another space above, a more casual spot furnished with bean bag chairs.

Maggie Rauch lives in Beijing and keeps a blog about the Chinese sports world, China Sports Today.

Posted by admin at May 26th, 2009

By Jim Boyce

Know which wine pairs with stinky tofu? Able to identify the difference between a corked wine and one that is oaked? Realize that the pros ease open – rather than pop – a bottle of sparkling wine?

Then the China National Sommelier Competition 2009, organized by Asia Wine Institute and Asia Business Group, might be for you. The contest is open to citizens of China who are aged 18 or up and who have been working in wine for a food or beverage restaurant establishment in China for at least one year. For more details and the application form, click here.

The application deadline is June 3. The finals are slated for July 7 in Shanghai with the qualifying rounds set for June 10 in Beijing and Shanghai. The winner will go to Japan to represent China in the first “best sommelier of Asia-Oceania” contest to be organized by the International Association of Sommeliers (ASI).

Posted by admin at May 21st, 2009

By Jim Boyce

As I am a fan of the Palette Wines portfolio and of enjoying a few bottles with friends in cozy hutong surroundings, the combination of the two is bound to be a winner. Since writing last October about the Dongsishitiao branch of Palette Vino, in Beijing, I have returned four times to enjoy the reasonably priced wines and relaxed atmosphere.

Palette Vino scores on several fronts. The prices are slightly above retail and thus about as low as you can find in the city, with wines on the by-the-glass menu from RMB30 and many of the several hundred bottles on offer for less than RMB200. The decor is tasteful and the atmosphere is relaxed, with the seating options including a lounge up front, a bar in back, and a courtyard separating the two (the rooftop is not yet open, but has great potential). And while I did not eat there last night, my previous experiences, and those of several readers, have been generally good. Owner John Gai describes the food as “bistro style“, with a menu that covers everything from char-grilled lamb, steak, and swordfish to a selection of salads and desserts.

Last night, our party of three sampled some of the dozen or so items on the by-the-glass menu, including an Italian Nero d’Avola (RMB40). We then tucked away two bottles, including a South African Pinotage rose (RMB150; a bit nondescript) and an Australian Shiraz (RMB150; good quality given the price), from among the several hundred on offer.

Good wine selection, good atmosphere, good times…

And for those seeking a quick drink after Palette Vino closes, the chuar shop next door offers tasty lamb kebabs and cheap Yanjing.

Note: For more about John Gai, see this interview.

Posted by admin at May 19th, 2009

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Those who enjoy using the term “wine porn” should get a bottle  of the Australian wine Alice White as sold by mega-booze firm Constellation here in China. The tasting notes on the back label provide a description that sounds fit for B-grade porn flick. Namely, they inform consumers  to expect the sensation of “sweet fuck.”

I’m not sure if that means savory, creamy, musky, or evoking wet horse saddle, or what would make for a proper food pairing (one friend suggested sausage). But the company clearly made a huge mistake. The bottle should have been packaged with a complimentary pack of cigarettes so wine lovers could properly enjoy the end of the bottle. Or better yet, featured a blurb from the world’s most famous critic, Robert Parker – he’s no stranger to wine and sex.

Mr Parker described Ms Samson's wine as "luscious." (msn.com)

Posted by admin at May 12th, 2009

By Brian Yao

A couple of weeks ago, I visited a customer in the suburb of Xingsha in Changsha, the capital city of Hunan province in south China. I love this place and find the local spicy food to be quite good. I stayed in the Venice Hotel, which has a good restaurant and some decent wines. Unfortunately, the restaurant was closed so I was unable to eat there and try a bottle of wine. Instead, I ended up eating in the lobby and drinking a Tsingtao beer.

The next day, I decided to search for a place to eat near the hotel. I found a restaurant called Sun Young, which had a poster outside featuring Spanish wines. The restaurant serves Western and Chinese food and, to my surprise, has a focus on wine. It even has a sommelier – Lv Hao Hao – to help customers if they want to pair a bottle of wine with food.

I ordered a spicy dish and a vegetable dish. I also ordered an Italian Merlot, which did not pair well with the spicy dish. At this point, the sommelier brought over a Loire white and two glasses. Friendly and generous, he invited me to share this wine that came from his personal collection. It was properly chilled, served in the right glasses, and had fresh pear aromas, a medium body, and nice acidity. We finished both the Loire white and the Merlot, and had a good chat about wine.

Lv Hao Hao is very friendly and passionate. His boss chose him to be the sommelier because of his personality and he is learning more about wine. The next time I travel to Changsha, I will probably bring a bottle of Grace Vineyard to share with him.

Overall, I was satisfied with the food and the wine in Xingsha. I believe it would be hard to find a restaurant even in downtown Changsha that served drinkable wines and had a sommelier.

Note: Sun Young has a cellar with about 50 wines from importers in south China, particularly from those in Guangzhou. and hosts monthly wine tastings.

Lv Hao Hao at an Australian wine tasting held in Sun Young restaurant.

Posted by admin at May 11th, 2009

By Chantal Chi

After spending a decade visiting the world’s wine regions, I decided this past year to see how the wine industry is progressing at home in China. Flying over China makes me realize that this country, with its diversity of climates and soils, is best considered as a continent. Given this, there should be an ideal “terroir” for wine in China, right?

My travels started in the northern province of Hebei, which surrounds the nation’s capital, Beijing. Smaller wineries have arisen here since bigger players settled down more than a decade ago. French-Chinese joint venture Dragon Seal led the way in 1987, but it lost its way in fine wine several years ago. “By marketing and branding, they think they can sell wines already,” said the company’s French winemaker, Jerome Sabate with little enthusiasm.

This is the major issue in the Chinese wine world: For most producers, wine is a product like any other and the goal is simply to have high returns. Fortunately, some people have a “philosophy” behind their wine making.

Going organic

Take Bolongbao winery, an organic producer in Hebei, just outside Beijing. Owner Zou Fu Lin decided to produce his own wine after tasting great wines while traveling in France. “After years of research, I finally found this ‘virgin” land,” he says of the vineyards. “It allowed me to do bio farming from the start.”

Hebei is also home to the organic viticulture of Bodega Langes, wholly-owned by the Austrian Swarovski family, which is best known for making crystal. The winery is fairly close to the coast and three hours by car from Beijing.

I arrived in early October. The villagers were picking the grapes in the vineyard, located at the foot of a mountain, to the strains of music (it plays in the cellar, too). Grain previously grew here, so Bodega Langes had to wait a few years before getting its bio certification in 2008. “Our owner wants to produce bio products according to his mother’s wish”, general manager Ren Jing explained.

Two organic wineries – great! I am more than pleased to see people who care about nature and about creating healthy products. But have they found ideal terroir for great wines?

Winery challenges

The answer was not clear. The vines inland need to be buried from November to March as protection from the severe cold and the threat of being dried out by the wind. The same goes for other wineries, including Sino-French Demonstration Vineyard and Grace Vineyard. These wineries also face issues common to other producers.

Sino-French started in 2001 as a joint venture between the French and Chinese governments, though the cooperation has since ended. I saw that the winery is suffering from a lack of care. Vice general manager Zhao De Sheng showed me the cellar and said they need new materials, such as barrels and bottles, and that their 2005 white is still in the tank. All their work, all those grapes, and all that wine – what a waste!

Grace Vineyard is in a much better position, with investment from wealthy overseas Chinese who want to show that China can produce great wines. I flew to Shanxi, the province just west of Hebei. Grace’s Australian winemaker Ken Murchison and Chilean winemaker Mr. Carrasco from Torres Chile – Torres distributes Grace’s wine in China – were supervising the key moments. Carrasco said the local team still had much to learn about wine-making.

Quality versus quantity

But the real challenge of making wine in China is relationships, from those with the village chiefs to those with the grape growers. Murchison, who joined Grace as winemaker at the end of 2005, said the vineyard usually deals with 450 grape-growers, but in 2008, which had a very abundant harvest, they dealt with 550 farmers who are used to doing things their own way.

“Give me great grapes and I will give you great wines,” goes a famous saying. But in China, getting great grapes is the hardest part. This is because the system generally dictates that the farmer who sells more grapes gets more money, which takes away a focus on quality. Farmers have no reason to do “green” harvest, to forgo irrigating the vines before harvest, or to reduce the yield, because these measures make no sense to those local farmers cause they are paid by weight.

Ambitions for greatness

Looking at the wine scene as a whole, perhaps one project symbolized that change is in the air. That project, in Shandong, is Chateau Junding, the premium winery opened about two years ago by the powerful COFCO group, which owns Great Wall, a top brand in terms of national production and sales. It is an ambitious project that is undertaken with goodwill. That such a big group sees quality wines as important and runs its winery with honor is, to me, a significant gesture in the Chinese wine industry.

However, this vineyard in Penglia, near the coast, also has its challenges. Damp summers and plentiful rainfall are not ideal for early maturing grape varieties. The humid weather causes diseases.

According to some wine professionals, there are potential “Eldorados” in northwest China, in Xinjiang and Ningxia, where the growing season features drier weather and plentiful sunshine. When I visited Loulan winery in Turpan, XinJiang, I found the sun hard to endure – it was 42 degrees Celsius at 11 in the morning! This also poses difficulties. Alain Leroux, a winemaker with Taillan China who is working as consultant for some wineries there, said “The grapes can get burned before getting a good polyphenalic maturity.”

The importance of attitude

So, where is THE ideal terroir in China?! A few months ago, I met Claude and Lydia Bourguignon, who specialize in analyzing soil in Burgundy and work with top wine producers, such as Domaine de la Romanée-Conti. I asked them if there would be any ideal terroir in China? “The climate and the soil are the source of good grapes, but a great wine is a combination of terroir, a suitable variety, and people!” they said.

Finding proper terroir in China seems to be a complicated issue. Viticulturists and winemakers here are still gaining experience and are not able to use as a guide the experience of their ancestors. They also face challenges such as investors who are focused on money-making, farmers who pursue quantity rather than quality when it comes to growing grapes, and administrators who can make it difficult to try to plant grape varieties that are suitable for the terroir but not the market.

How long will it take to overcome these challenges so that we can have great wines in China? I think the answer in China is not so much in the soil under our feet as it is in the attitude toward making wine.

(More posts by Chantal Chi)

Posted by admin at May 6th, 2009

By Jim Boyce

The Simply Bordeaux 2009 tour recently stopped in Beijing to promote the “top 100″ wine selections for China as chosen at a tasting held in January. I participated in that tasting with three wine experts in Shanghai – we judged more than 300 different bottles of Bordeaux in just over two days. The invitation to join the panel surprised me because I am neither a wine expert nor had I tried so many wines in such a short time, so I give kudos to CIVB for taking the risk of involving a consumer.

(Note: I wrote two posts about the experience. The first, “Joining the pros for 340 wines in 3 days“, equated my experience with that of George Plimpton, a writer who tried out with an NFL team, and looked at the physical and mental effects – numb gums, aching teeth, etc. The second, “The anatomy of a wine panel“, covered my – in some cases ineffectual – preparations, the tasting process, and notes I took during the event.)

In any case, the Beijing tasting, held at the Kerry Centre Hotel, featured 100 wines found in a new Simply Bordeaux brochure (g0 here to get the pdf). I sampled about 20 wines with some fellow tasters. Here are a few notes:

Chateau Escart 2005 (East Meets West)
Red fruit and oak, with some herbs and licorice, on the nose. Juicy and fruity in the mouth, though a bit sour.

Chateau Cilorn 2005 (Beijing Label France)
Good fruit on the nose and in the body. Some licorice, underbrush, and earth aromas. Easy drinking, though with a touch of bitterness at the end.

De Malleprat 2005 (Top Cellar)
Warm, toasty, and a little jammy. Fellow taster Brian Yao said, “I like the smell, the body, and the balance.”

Marcades 2005 Lalande de Pomerol
Tight fruit, with flower and red licorice aromas. Light in the mouth.

Chateau Chenin-Lafitte 2004 (France Chateaux)
Fellow taster Joan Yip liked it because she found it full-bodied and not acidic.

Lescure Sauvignon Blanc 2006 (France Chateaux)
I liked the nose – dry grass, pears, and flowers – though I found the body a bit watery. (Yip found it too fruity, acidic, and light.)

Chateau Bujeau Le Grave 2006 (French Wine Paradox)
Brambly fruit with some earthy aromas. Slightly creamy, with plenty of tannins at the end.