Chateau Lafite is insanely popular in China and consumers here should be careful to avoid not only fake bottles, but also mistakenly buying Chateau Lafitte, a separate operation that includes a double-t in its name. Let me be clear: I am not saying there is anything wrong with Chateau Laffite as a wine. Instead, the concern is that some consumers might pay outrageous prices for Lafitte in the belief they are buying the much pricier Lafite. This could not only mean a loss of money but also a loss of face should that Lafitte be given as as a gift to someone who knows the difference. Considering that the label above is being offered to distributors at 5.5 Euros, or about RMB55 per bottles, and adding in transporation costs and duties, you should not be paying more than RMB150 at retail for this one.
Les contrefaiteurs ciblent les vins de luxe: l’A.F.P. rapporte que Petrus, Romanee-Conti, Château d’Yquem et bien d’autres vins de prestige sont en ligne de mire des contrefaiteurs:
The BBC reports on Moroccan wine industry ambitions, which includes some mentions of China:
Mehdi Bouchaara, a member of ASPRAM [the Moroccan wine-growers association]… says that Morocco is currently producing 300,000 hectolitres of wine each year, making it one of the most significant in the Arab world.
“At the moment we are in negotiations in China and will shortly be building a bottling factory there. Most of our wine is exported in bulk,” he explains.
“With our Chinese partners we will put it in bottles that bear a Moroccan label.”
The story looks at the history of wine in Morroco (“The first evidence… was in the time of the Phoenicians – the first millennium BC.”), twentieth-century changes (“Until the Treaty of Rome in 1957 banned blending wines, the highly coloured, robust Moroccan wine was shipped back to France in bulk and frequently added as a boost to Gallic wine”), and investment issues (“buyers have to comply with… a list of responsibilities that include employing a certain number of local people“).
Launched in Beijing last year, the International Congress of Chinese Cuisine & Wine (ICCCW) held its follow-up event in Singapore earlier this month, reports Sommelier India. Organized by Ch’ng Poh Tiong, the ICCCW aims to determine the best wine and Chinese food pairings: “the panelists tasted small, individual servings of several representative dishes from Teochew, Sichuan and Cantonese cuisines at three well known specialist restaurants in Singapore, exploring which characteristics of the wines worked best with the dishes and giving their reasons.”
By the way, Grape Wall remains the only Web site to make wine recommendations for this particular food. (More on last year’s ICCCW event in Beijing here, plus an interview with Ch’ng Poh Tiong here.)
“In its first foray into global merchandising, 7-Eleven, Inc. (SEI) in the U.S. and Seven-Eleven Japan (SEJ) are jointly introducing two proprietary wines – a Chardonnay and a Cabernet Sauvignon – today under the Yosemite Road label,” according to a post on franchising.com. More from the post:
Value-priced wines, those under $5, have been gaining in popularity and enjoying double-digit sales growth at 7-Eleven stores as consumers continue to search for value in their purchasing decisions…. Suggested retail price for a standard 750 milliliter bottle is $3.99 in the U.S…. and 598 yen in Japan.
I’m waiting for the Super Big Gulp Grenache and the Shiraz Slurpee to hit my local 7-ELEVEN in Beijing.
Rare are those times when a wine maker drops his pants at a tasting – I would guess it is on par with the frequency of an eclipse, which is an apt comparison given you would not want to stare directly if the sun were being blocked by the “moon” displayed by Dave Powell of Barossa Valley winery Torbreck during a dinner organized by Links at the Capital Club in Beijing last Tuesday (photo below). Before we get to Powell’s, uh, white full-bodied bottom, here are a few things I learned about him and his wines during the dinner:
Visits: Powell first came to China as a backpacker about 20 years ago and spent three months touring the country, with the stops including Shanghai, Xian, Urumqi, Beijing, and Qingdao. He also once worked as a lumberjack in a forest in Scotland named… Torbreck.
Vines: The oldest he uses date back 158 years. He says these are the world’s third-oldest and that the others are also in the Barossa Valley.
Viticulture: Powell says he doesn’t irrigate his vineyards and instead uses “dry growth” techniques and avoids the use of “nasty pesticides”. He adds that he prefers French oak to American oak because it complements the wine: “It’s like salt in cooking. It should enhance the food. If you can taste it, there’s too much. It’s the same with oak. In the end, it’s all about the fruit.” And that Robert Parker once described his wines as having one foot in the southern hemisphere and one foot in the northern hemisphere, that is, as being big and rich but having finesses and elegance. “Sure, you’re looking at me in my work boots and jeans and wondering how I can be elegant,” jokes Powell.
Volume: Powell says 15 years ago, he crushed one ton of grapes, now he crushes 1,000 tons.
I tried four of Powell’s wines at the Hilton Food & Wine Experience and enjoyed the Semillon. At the dinner, I preferred the Struie Shiraz 2005, served from a magnum – deep fruit, with some sweet oak, earthiness, and smokiness. It’s a big and round wine, with ample fruit up front. I also enjoyed the Rousanne-Marsannie-Viognier for its vanilla, floral, and tropical fruit smells.
This was the most I have spent – ~RMB700 – on a dinner in a while, but I decided to splurge given the wines, food, and venue, and because Torbreck is among the few wineries I have visited outside of China (more on this soon). Even better value: Links broke out a bottle of Cristal at the end of the night. Nothing like enjoying Champagne and gazing at a full moon…
The story behind this photo: Powell was at a restaurant in Denmark where the owners branded the place’s name on the outdoor furniture to prevent theft. After quite a bit of wine and after watching the sous chef get his arm seared by the red-hot brand, Powell decided to get his own souvenir on a more easily hid part of his body – his ass. He added that he pretty much could not sit down for five days.
Gallery photos, clockwise from top left: Powell strips; Links head Patricio de la Fuente Saez pours Cristal; Powell speaks; de le Fuente Saez and Capital Club GM Betrand Petton introduce Powell.
Note: The following post recently appeared in Agenda magazine in Beijing (see online version here).
By Jim Boyce
Beijing stores shelves are lined with hundreds of imported wines that retail for less than RMB100 [USD16 / 10 Euros]. Choice is certainly not a problem, although deciding which wines are best is not always easy. This is especially true when it comes to making recommendations to Chinese consumers because so little research has been done on which wines they tend to like.
Given this, I teamed up with local sommelier Nicolas Carre and consultant Frankie Zhao, two fellow contributors to the Grape Wall of China blog, to hold a wine contest [called The Grape Wall Challenge] earlier this year. Our goal was simple: To ask panels of Chinese wine consumers and professionals to blind taste about forty imported wines priced at less than RMB100. (We asked local wine distributors to provide up to four wines each – two red and two white.) Our process was also simple: We asked the judges to put each wine into one of four categories – “I love it,†“I like it,†“I dislike it†or “I hate it.â€
The professionals gravitated toward grape varieties that are common worldwide, picking Cedar Creek Shiraz-Cabernet Sauvignon 2008 from Australia (sold by Top Cellar for RMB92) as the top red, while Concha y Toro Frontera Sauvignon Blanc 2007 from Chile (Summergate, RMB79) and Bushman’s Gully Semillon-Chardonnay 2008 from Australia (Links, RMB92) tied as the top white wines.
This isn’t the case for consumers. They tended toward less commonly found wines and chose Zonin Terre Palladiane Soave from Italy (Torres, RMB96) as the top white and Foot of Africa Pinotage 2006 from South Africa (Torres, RMB99) as the top red, alongside Paso del Sol Merlot 2007 from Chile (DT Asia, RMB95).
What does this all suggest? That taste is subjective and that consumers do not necessarily like the same things as experts: not exactly groundbreaking findings, but important to point out. More interesting is that both the professionals and consumers scored white wines much higher than red wines, which is surprising given that more than 80 percent of the wine sold in China is red.
Other [high-scoring] reds include Callia Alta Shiraz-Malbec 2007 from Argentina (Torres, RMB72) and Concha y Toro Frontera Cabernet Sauvignon 2008 from Chile (Summergate, RMB79); while whites are represented by Farmese Primo Malvasia 2007 from Italy (ASC, RMB92), Stella Solaris Chardonnay 2006 from Chile (Top Cellar, RMB62), and Santa Rita 120 Sauvignon Blanc 2008 from Chile (ASC, RMB93).
Perhaps your best bet is to buy some of these wines and do your own tasting. After all, it is hard to go wrong at these prices. And if you wish to add a few more, you can try some of other top red and white wines from our contest, as determined by the combined scores of the professionals and consumers [see here].
Our next contest will focus on Chinese wines, specifically those made with grapes grown in China, since many domestic companies blend in bulk wine from Chile, Argentina, Australia, and elsewhere. In the meantime, if you are hankering to try some of the local product, your best bets are Grace Vineyard, from the north-central province of Shanxi, and Silver Heights, from the northwestern region of China. Both are distributed by Torres China.
The Grace entry-levelChardonnay and Cabernet Sauvignon retail for about RMB60 and are among the few value-for-money Chinese wines in the market. Much better is the Premium Chardonnay, at just over RMB100, the Tasya’s Reserve series, including the Cabernet Franc and the Cabernet Sauvignon, which retail for just under RMB200, and the “Symphony†Muscat that a joint team from Grace and Torres in Spain produced last year. Grace wines are also available in many hotels, restaurants, and bars in Beijing.
Silver Heights is a newcomer that is showing great potential. These wines are more expensive, starting from RMB200, and are available online from Torres China.
Finally, to go even more local, Dragon Seal sources its grapes from just outside Beijing, in Hebei Province. While the resulting wines can be inconsistent, this is due less to the wine-maker and more to the quality of the grapes. There are several decent Dragon Seal wines available for about RMB75, while the Hualai Reserve [Cabernet Sauvignon] is a better but pricier bet at about RMB220.
[Note: I would also add Helan Mountain wines to the list. I tried them yet again at the recent Hilton Food & Wine Experience and would put them on a par with Dragon Seal – a bit inconsistent but worth a try.]
Beijing stores shelves are lined with hundreds of imported wines that retail for less than RMB 100. Choice is certainly not a problem, although deciding which wines are best is not always easy. This is especially true when it comes to making recommendations to Chinese consumers because so little research has been done on which wines they tend to like.
Given this, I teamed up with local sommelier Nicolas Carre and consultant Frankie Zhao, two fellow contributors to the Grape Wall of China blog, to hold a wine contest earlier this year. Our goal was simple: To ask panels of Chinese wine consumers and professionals to blind taste about forty imported wines priced at less than RMB 100. (We asked local wine distributors to provide up to four wines each – two red and two white.) Our process was also simple: We asked the judges to put each wine into one of four categories – “I love it,†“I like it,†“I dislike it†or “I hate it.â€
The professionals gravitated toward grape varieties that are common worldwide, picking Cedar Creek Shiraz-Cabernet Sauvignon 2008 from Australia (sold by Top Cellar for RMB 92) as the top red, while Concha y Toro Frontera Sauvignon Blanc 2007 from Chile (Summergate, RMB 79) and Bushman’s Gully Semillon-Chardonnay 2008 from Australia (Links, RMB 92) tied as the top white wines.
This isn’t the case for consumers. They tended toward less commonly found wines and chose Zonin Terre Palladiane Soave from Italy (Torres, RMB 96) as the top white and Foot of Africa Pinotage 2006 from South Africa (Torres, RMB 99) as the top red, alongside Paso del Sol Merlot 2007 from Chile (DT Asia, RMB 95).
What does this all suggest? That taste is subjective and that consumers do not necessarily like the same things as experts: not exactly groundbreaking findings, but important to point out. More interesting is that both the professionals and consumers scored white wines much higher than red wines, which is surprising given that more than 80 percent of the wine sold in China is red.
Other reds include Callia Alta Shiraz-Malbec 2007 from Argentina (Torres, RMB 72) and Concha y Toro Frontera Cabernet Sauvignon 2008 from Chile (Summergate, RMB 79); while whites are represented by Farmese Primo Malvasia 2007 from Italy (ASC, RMB 92), Stella Solaris Chardonnay 2006 from Chile (Top Cellar, RMB 62), and Santa Rita 120 Sauvignon Blanc 2008 from Chile (ASC, RMB 93).
Perhaps your best bet is to buy some of these wines and do your own tasting. After all, it is hard to go wrong at these prices. And if you wish to add a few more, you can try some of other top red and white wines from our contest, as determined by the combined scores of the professionals and consumers.
Our next contest will focus on Chinese wines, specifically those made with grapes grown in China, since many domestic companies blend in bulk wine from Chile, Argentina, Australia, and elsewhere. In the meantime, if you are hankering to try some of the local product, your best bets are Grace Vineyard, from the north-central province of Shanxi, and Silver Heights, from the northwestern region of China. Both are distributed by Torres China.
The Grace entry-level Chardonnay and Cabernet Sauvignon retail for about RMB 60 and are among the few value-for-money Chinese wines in the market. Much better is the Premium Chardonnay, at just over RMB 100, the Tasya’s Reserve series, including the Cabernet Franc and the Cabernet Sauvignon, which retail for just under RMB 200, and the “Symphony†Muscat that a joint team from Grace and Torres in Spain produced last year. Grace wines are also available in many hotels, restaurants, and bars in Beijing.
Silver Heights is a newcomer that is showing great potential. These wines are more expensive, starting from RMB 200, and are available online from Torres China.
Finally, to go even more local, Dragon Seal sources its grapes from just outside Beijing, in Hebei Province. While the resulting wines can be inconsistent, this is due less to the wine-maker and more to the quality of the grapes. There are several decent Dragon Seal wines available for about RMB 75, while the Hualai Reserve is a better but pricier bet at about RMB 220.
The New Yorker just published a lengthy article by Evan Osnos about ASC Fine Wines founder Don St. Pierre, Sr and his son Don St. Pierre, Jr. In it, St. Pierre, Sr comes off as a profanity-uttering, rough-and-tumble, take-no-prisoners businessman. Based on my experience, much of the language is vintage St. Pierre – I have heard it firsthand in several confrontations with him. On the other hand, while St. Pierre can be intense, there is a steeplearning curve when talking to him about the wine business and few people respond to emails as quickly – English writer Jancis Robinson is another who comes to mind – even if the topic is unpleasant.
While the article is titillating as a personality profile, and includes fascinating statistics and anecdotes, I find it a bit thin because it does not explain how ASC rose to prominence, nor – given its portrayal of St. Pierre, Sr as ruthless – include a single negative comment from a competitor aka enemy. It generally focuses on the late 1990s – an ASC wine-and-necktie gift pack promotion that started with a run of 200 and ended up selling hundreds of times more; an investment from Gernot Langes-Swarovski, of the Austrian crystal-making family, that gave ASC the capital to expand – and on the nearly one-month detention of Don St. Pierre Jr by Customs in 2008. There is precious little about what happened in between that resulted in ASC growing from a struggling company to the most prominent in China in the wine importing and distribution business.
In fact, there is more about a 1995 raid by U.S. officials of a stock of 74 million bullets imported there by the St. Pierres, before they ever got into the wine business. (The government dropped the case when it found the ammo had been legally brought in.) This makes for interesting material, as does the author’s experiences at a wine dinner and a wine education class, and obviously a great deal of research went into the piece. But, again, the question lingering in the air is how ASC succeeded. I’ll have more about this on Monday. For now, here are a few excerpts from the subscription-only article (I typed them in, so any typos, as well as the highlights, are mine):
Donald St. Pierre, Sr., founded A.S.C. Wines in Beijing in 1996, in partnership with his son, Donald St. Pierre, Jr., whom everyone calls Don, Jr. The St. Pierres were not winemakers or sommeliers. The elder St. Pierre, who had spent his early years in the automobile business, in Detroit and Beijing and elsewhere, was more of a “hot-dog-and-bourbon type,” as a former colleague put it. But they knew sales. In 1989, four years after St. Pierre arrived in the country, Jim Mann, a former Beijing bureau chief for the Los Angeles Times, pronounced him “probably the single best-known businessman working in China.” Over the years, the St. Pierres had sold, or considered selling, baby products, gas masks, photocopiers, golf gloves, scrap metal, lingerie, sugar, pistachios, and Chinese and Russian ammunition.
From further in the story:
When I joined St. Pierre at the [members-only Capital Club] recently, nearly everyone who passed by stopped to greet him. “Look at that assh0le!” he replied with a smile, his version of high praise. St. Pierre’s comfort with confrontation extends to his only hobby: golf. At a charity golf tournament in 1997, St. Pierre accused a rival foursome of cheating. The team composed of senior Communist Party officials, including a high-ranking military general and the chairman of a large arms manufacturer. St. Pierre’s friends urged him to back off, but not before St. Pierre had waved his finger and said, “You fuck off. You’re a cheater!” (His protests persuaded tournament officials to give his team a share of the winnings.) I asked St. Pierre if he thought he had ever been too aggressive. He frowned. “What does that mean? ‘Too aggressive.’ Do you like to kill your competitors or don’t you?”
His tactics have made A.S.C. China’s largest wine importer, with annual revenues of more than seventy million dollars. Jancis Robinson, a prominent wine critic in London, wrote that the St. Pierres have attained “a position in the Chinese wine scene similar to that of the Gallos in the U.S.“
And a final one:
On April 8, 2008, twenty-eight days after Don, Jr. was detained [by Customs], he was released. A.S.C. acknowledged a limited number of undervaluations, he says, and it agreed to pay back-duties and fees totaling 1.8 million yuan–about two hundred and sixty-four thousand dollars, a relatively small sum, given the company’s volume of imports. Don, Jr., was never charged with a crime. He says that A.S.C. made technical mistakes that grew out of the fluctuating values of fine wine and foreign currencies. “We were hedging Euros against dollars, and sometimes we did it right and sometimes we did it wrong,” he told me…
The wine investigation widened, and by the end of 2008 it had let to punishment in twenty-nine cases, on wine valued at twenty-five million dollars, according to a report in Legal Daily, a state-run paper. Companies were accused of doctoring invoices and “laundering documents” through Hong Kong, where there are no tariffs on wine imports. The St. Pierres did none of that, Don, Jr., says. But the case was “a wake-up call,” he told me one afternoon at his apartment in Shanghai. “No one sits you down and says, ‘You’ve arrived in China. These are the laws.’ Because people just don’t think they apply to them! And they do now.”
Note: While he was researching this piece, I talked to Osnos several times by phone re the St. Pierres and wine in China.
People in the wine business here say there is more ’82 Lafite in China than was ever produced that year in France. – Wall Street Journal
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By Jim Boyce
One reason I recently posted an exchange with Benjamin Wallace, author of Billionaire’s Vinegar, is because of the massive – and growing – amount of fine and rare wine in Hong Kong. A few stories this week riff on that reality.
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The Great Hong Kong Wine Heist: The Wall Street Journal reports on the theft of 228 bottles of the much sought after 1982 Chateau Lafite Rothschild, worth HKD6.8 million / USD877,000, according to police.
Apparently, several men surreptitiously entered the warehouse, tying up and gagging a guard, who later phoned police. The theft was first reported in the South China Morning Post….
These days, ’82 Lafite represents the height of wine prestige in China. Collectors and counterfeiters alike have made a mint on the hefty sums this particular brand and year can command. In Hong Kong, a bottle goes for anywhere between HK$37,000 and HK$48,000.
Interesting story, but one angle not covered that seems highly relevant: Whether or not the wines were insured.
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Counterfeiters target luxury wines: AFP reports that Petrus, Romanee-Conti, Chateau d’Yquem, and other wines are being targeted by counterfeiters:
The counterfeiting “touches five to six of the very top wine estates in Bordeaux where there is a real potential to make a capital gain and where there is a world-wide demand because the products are rare,” said wine tycoon Bernard Magrez, owner of 35 estates, including several in Bordeaux.
These tend to be the same estates that draw a massive amount of attention from buyers in Hong Kong. What is especially intriguing is wines showing up in auctions and sales that were never produced by the wineries listed on the label. If this is the case, you have to wonder about the lack ofdue diligence by some auction houses. A few cases noted in the article (my highlights):
Jeroboams, the equivalent of four bottles, of the 1945 vintage from [Romanee-Conti] have recently been sold in auctions, according to Laurent Ponsot, a renowned Burgundy producer. Alas, Romanee-Conti did not bottle their 1945 in Jeroboams.
Ponsot, owner of Domaine Ponsot, has had his own misadventures with counterfeiters. At a sale in New York in 2008, the vintner was shocked to discover that “106 bottles out of 107” were fakes. The catalogue listed “a sale of Clos Saint Denis 1945 and other old vintages when we didn’t even begin producing this particular appellation until 1982,” he recounted.
Perhaps those intending to buy such wines are best doing some Googling or making some phone calls themselves…
The third Thursday of November is upon us and that means Beaujolais Nouveau parties (see here for more on this phenomenon). Get your plonk at one of these parties:
Le Baie des Anges: Beaujolais Nouveau at RMB40 per glass or RMB200 per bottle.
French Cultural Center: Beaujolais Nouveau, alongside other French wines, including Champagne, as well as live music and food from Le Petit Gourmand; 7:30 PM to 10:30 PM; RMB130.
Enoteca: Complimentary buffet, live music, and Beaujolais Nouveau at RMB200 per bottle, from 8 PM.
Also of note:
Scarlett: Beaujolias Nouveau party tomorrow, the 20th, from 7 PM; wine with a cold cut and cheese buffet; RMB218.
Le Petit Gourmand: Week-long special starting tomorrow; glass of Gamay wine plus cold cut and cheese plate for RMB99 (RMB128 with two glasses). The wine is available at RMB35 per glass or RMB150 per bottle.
This post at Obama Foodorama reports that China President Hu Jintao hosted U.S. President Barack Obama at a state dinner earlier this week and served him both red and white Great Wall 2002 wines. Does that count as an assassination attempt? (Kidding, just kidding). In any case, the leaders ate “Chinese-style beef steak” and roast grouper while listening to current hits such as “We Are the World” and “I Just Called to Say I Love You”, before heading off for a night of baijiu shots and KTV.
Quite a shift from 1972, when Richard Nixon visited. At a state dinner with Zhou Enlai, it was Nixon who provided the wine. From the wine blog Dr. Vino:
Hugh [Davies of Schramsberg], 42, told me that in 1972, his dad, Jack, got word from the Nixon White House that they would need 13 cases of Schramsberg 1969 blanc de blanc. And those cases had to be delivered to Travis Air Force Base. Hugh said that it was all a bit mysterious but his dad loaded up the cases into his jeep, drove them over to the Base where he got paid and left the wine.
Then three weeks later, images of Nixon’s historic trip to China were broadcast back to the US. And there was good old Nixon raising a glass of Schramsberg with Premier Zhou En Lai in a “toast to peace.†Hugh said that Barbara Walters reported from Tiananmen Square that Nixon and Zhou had just toasted with the Schramsberg “blank de blank.†Thirteen cases must have kept the whole delegation happy!
Now, instead of U.S. Presidents bringing their own wine to China, they are getting a taste of the local grapes, assuming those Great Walls aren’t among the Chinese bottles that also include bulk Chilean, Australian, or other wines…
California-based Spectrum Wine Auctions will hold its first event in Hong Kong – with more than 200 lots from the collection of Aubrey McClendon – at Crown Wine Cellars at 9 AM on November 22. This is the latest event that affirms Hong Kong as a top-three auction site along with New York and London.
The items up for grabs, as listed in a press release from Spectrum, include 1945 Latour, 1959 Lafite Rothschild, and six-liter bottles of 1982 Cheval Blanc and 1989 Haut Brion, as well as Chateau Mouton Rothschild in every format from 750ml to imperial (six-liter) bottles. It also notes some unexpected items: “One interesting lot in particular is Lot #665–a single 750ml bottle of 1966 Robert Mondavi Cabernet Sauvignon; the vineyard’s very first vintage… The estimate? A mere $50 to own a piece of history.”
Each lot includes a single estimated selling price rather than a range of prices. The catalog is available here. For more information on the auction, call 888-982-1982.
