Raising the glass: Inner Mongolia winery Hansen fights fakes via bottle design

Chateau Hansen is based in Inner Mongolia and is among the nation’s more interesting wineries to watch. I met wine maker Bruno Paumard recently with fellow Grape Wall’er Nicolas Carre and he said Hansen has about 250 hectares of grapes (60% Cabernet Sauvignon, 30% Cabernet Gernischt, 10% Merlot) and is set to multiply that coverage. That it produced 2 million bottles last year, compared to ~400,000 bottles a year earlier, with three-quarters sold in Inner Mongolia. And that it is targeting its unoaked wine at foreign markets: Paumaud says he has orders from Denmark and Ireland.

We also tasted seven Hansen wines, which I’ll cover in a second post. What struck me as we tried them was Paumard pointing out that the bottles have the winery’s name in raised glass just below the neck. Hansen originally used plain bottles, he said, but switched because the company found some knockoffs in Inner Mongolia. By customizing the bottle, Hansen has made it much harder to cheat…

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