Grape Wall of China

A China Wine Blog: The Scene in the World’s Largest Market

Macau discards wine tax

By Jim Boyce Decanter reports that gambling hotspot Macau scrapped its 15 percent tax on wine, just months after Hong Kong took similar measures, though single malt lovers have much less to celebrate. “A 10% tax on beer has also been lifted, though a duty of 10% remains on drinks containing more than 30% alcohol,” [...]

Friday food fight: Dirt

By Jim Boyce All right, it’s Friday afternoon and I can’t access any of my photos of Chinese dishes, so I’m stretching to cover a rather atypical food: dirt. Long-time readers will recall I earlier wrote about this story out of Inner Mongolia – Earth-eating Girl Tilts At Guinness Record – and now I am [...]

Wine word: Jean-Michel Cazes, Chateau Lynch-Bages

By Jim Boyce I have been fortunate over the past year to taste a world of wines with fellow consumers and to meet some of China’s and the world’s key wine figures. Last night offered another such occasion when I met Jean-Michel Cazes of Chateau Lynch-Bages to chat about China’s wine scene. First, a handful [...]

Global glutonny: The World Series of Wine

By Jim Boyce, Break out the baseball bats wine glasses as China World Hotel gets set to hold The World Series of Wine. The series of six monthly wine dinners starts this month and is the brainchild of Danny Kane, manager of the hotel’s Aria restaurant. All wines will be supplied by Summergate. According to [...]

Joining the bunch: Frankie Zhao, Pro-Wine Training & Consultancy

Frankie Zhao is joining the group of contributors at Grape Wall of China, a site that brings wine consumers, distributors, makers, academics and consultants together to provide information and opinions about the country’s growing wine scene. Zhao is the founder of market research and promotion company Pro-Wine Training & Consultancy. He has been active in [...]

Taste of the Nations: The Sequel

By Jim Boyce After Torres China organized Taste of the Nations last November, Beijing consumers found other local wine distributors lining up a good portion of their portfolios for tastings (see these write-ups on events by Palette Wines, GELIPU-Winelink, and ASC). It turned out to be a cheap way to try a lot of wine, [...]

Update: Grape Wall – The Interviews

By Jim Boyce As a wine drinker, I love to hear as many voices as possible, including those of wine writers, consumers, distributors, makers and event organizers. I’ve been lucky enough to talk to many such people, whether they are based in China or abroad, and whether we did it by phone, via email, or [...]

Beijing Olympics picks – wine bars

Cross-posted from my Beijing nightlife blog. I’ll soon post a list of Chinese wines to try for those in Beijing for the Olympics – it’s hard to believe they start in less than eight hours! JB. Both residents of Beijing and the barbarians descending upon it for the Olympics will require watering holes in which [...]

Beijing wine bar boom: Shunyi, China View, The Place, Gongti West

Wine shops continue to pop up about the city. Here are a few recent additions – and more are on the way. The Cellar Lounge opened in Shunyi (Piazza Cafe Courtyard) on Saturday. One of the suppliers posted about the place: “Wine lovers now have a spiritual home in Shunyi. The Cellar Lounge stocks a [...]

Update: Grape Wall of China

Apologies all around for the light posting of late – with the Olympics around the corner, I’ve been tied up with my Beijing nightlife blog, but there is plenty of material in the pipeline, including posts on: The wine bars and Chinese wines to try for those in Beijing for the Olympics The “Berlin tasting” [...]

  • About Grape Wall of China

    beijing-boyce-grape-wall-of-china-logo

    A nonprofit collaborative blog


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    Email: beijingboyce at yahoo.com

  • Grape Wall Contributors


    In alphabetical order (see full list)


    Nicolas Carre
    Sommelier


    Chantal Chi
    Writer


    Yvonne Chiong
    Sommelier, consultant


    Judy Leissner
    Grace Vineyard CEO


    Li Demei
    Wine maker


    Huiqin Ma
    Professor


    Campbell Thompson
    The Wine Republic co-owner


    Frankie Zhao
    Pro-Wine Training & Consultancy owner


    Jim Boyce
    Consumer, blog administrator