The second branch of South African restaurant Pinotage is set to open in Sanlitun Soho this weekend, says partner Toby Cao. The venue is directly across from the Adidas shop in Sanlitun Village and a few meters from where the Intercontinental hotel will open. It shares the complex with venues like Argentine restaurant Che Diego and Korean restaurant Ssam.
Pinotage includes a stripped down dining room (think simple wood furniture and white brick walls), a room with “chef’s table” that adjoins the kitchen and a wine bar. The latter is managed by Johnson and can comfortably seat ~30 people, including a dozen or so at a long bar, and includes trays for flights of up to eight wines. The menu includes ~60 wines that Cao imports from a dozen or so South African producers, including Babylonstoren, KMV, Boland Cellar, Bon Courage, Rooiberg, De Meye, Sarah’s Creek, Arabella, Jacqures Bruier, Papllion and Simonsvlei. Here’s hoping Pinotage stocks other South African wines available in Beijing, such as those from Springfield Estates.
Cao also plans to soon launch a smart phone app in English and Chinese so customers can get more info on the wines and order them for delivery.
In terms of food, he says chef Amber Deetlefts will present a very different menu that at the first Pinotage and says it is “modern” South African cuisine. I’ll have more on this soon. The hours will be noon to 2 AM daily, with lunch, dinner and bar menus available.
Opening dates can be a bit tricky in Beijing, so if you plan to head over to Pinoage this weekend I suggest first giving the place a call at 5785-3538.
Whether you interpret it as doubling your credit, drinking for half price or both, Pudao Wines in Shanghai and Beijing have an excellent offer the next few days. Charge your wine card from April 29 to May 1 in Shanghai or on April 29 and April 30 in Beijing (closed May 1) and Pudao Wines will double the amount. Thus, add rmb100 and get a rmb200 credit, add rmb1000 and get a rmb1000 credit, and add rmb8888 and get a rmb17,776 credit. This should justify taking that Inglenook sample up to a full glass.
Also, I stopped into the Beijing branch a few days ago and saw some bin ends for sale, including two bottles of The Stump Jump — see photo below — for rmb159 total.
Gaia Gaja of Piedmont-based winery Gaja has been to China over a dozen times since her first visit in 2005, including one trip that took her off the beaten path to backpack in Yunnan. She visited China this week and stopped by Beijing for a wine dinner — squeezing a tea tasting and nightclub visit into her itinerary as well — and I had the chance to ask her a few questions today about the wine scene.
On the Chinese wine consumers she has met…
“People in China are very confident about saying what they think about wine. In some other places, people are polite and quiet during the dinner and then, at the end of the meal, make some jaw-dropping comments.
“People here are straightforward. They ask questions and they start making distinctions right away — which wine is lighter, which wine is more balanced. This is the thing I have noticed, that people in China understand lightness, delicacy, elegance.
On why imports of Italian wine in China are so low, falling far behind other sources such as France, Australia and Spain…
“Our position [as a source of wine] is about the same as the United States. We lack support from the government and a good national program for promotion. When I was in Hong Kong, I met the representatives of a company that teaches WSET. They have classes for Spanish and French wines and asked if I would help establish an Italian class. I went back to Italy and contacted a national sommelier association about the project — I never heard back from the group.
On involvement in the Hong Kong fine wine auction scene…
“Last year, for the first time, we supplied wines directly for auction. There were eight lots, with the biggest one being 24 bottles [a vertical collection of Sori San Lorenzo Barbaresco]. We did it with Acker Merrall & Condit for an auction at the end of November.
On the situation in China’s neighbor, India…
“It has been a much more quiet market than China. A big problem is that different states have different taxes and the taxes are very high. Also, there are still not many big distributors. There are many young people in India drinking whisky and beer, so the habit of consumption is there, but wine demand is low and has fallen below everyone’s expectations.
On Chinese consumers when they first try Gaja wines…
“I expected it would be difficult because of the tannins and because Barbaresco and Barolo are so refined, require such focus, that I thought people would have to learn step by step to understand them. But I found people in China understand it very quickly, that they can detect how the perfume changes in the glass, so I see something special about this market, an ability to quickly appreciate delicate tastes and textures.
According to this story by Jonathan Kaiman in The Telegraph, the Aussie wine that aficionados love to hate — Yellowtail — played a part in the recent demise of a Chinese official:
Zhang Aihua did what he could to appease the outraged mob that burst into his private party, shocked as they were to witness tables strewn with rare Yangtze river fish and imported wine. He knelt on a table, picked up a loudhailer, and begged for forgiveness….
But his pleas went unheeded. When Zhang was fired on Monday, he became the latest victim of president Xi Jinping’s frugality and anti-corruption drive – an effort fuelled in no small part by an exasperated public set on exposing the country’s extreme wealth gap with mobile phone cameras and microblogs.
“I was outside and saw a lot of people, so rushed up to see what the commotion was,” said Jia Hongwei, a web forum administrator in Taizhou who captured the video at the industrial park’s “entertainment centre” where Zhang was hosting at least 20 colleagues and investors around three well-stocked tables.
Jia’s video shows a rambunctious flow of people cascading through narrow hallways and blowing past a smattering of helpless police officers in white safety helmets. The camera hones in on plates of mostly-eaten fish – poisonous pufferfish, long-tailed anchovy and largehead hairtail, according to onlookers – as well as top-shelf bottles of Chinese rice liquor and Australian Yellowtail wine.
Given his fate, I wonder if Zhang laments choosing Yellowtail over Lafite — or a bottle or two of Penfolds Grange. In any case, the story underscores the current risk to officials of spending too much on food and drink. While there is an argument that the government’s austerity program has simply served, at least in part, to push spending underground and that emptier restaurants belie increased private entertaining, the wine distributors I have talked to say they are feeling the pinch and cite up to 50-percent drops in sales for their highest-end imported bottles. It would be interesting to know the situation with the Chinese equivalents, and I mean equivalent in terms of price not quality, namely, those local wines that cost a hundred Euros or more but would fail spectacularly in a taste test against the much cheaper Yellowtail. Given that context, maybe Zhang wasn’t spending so recklessly on wine after all.
Yellowtail: Available at your friendly neighborhood Carrefour
My enthusiasm for the biannual Carrefour Wine Fair — held at the Shuangjing branch — has waned over the years. Fewer wine suppliers in Carrefour, more wine options throughout the city and the sense importers aren’t much interested in the fair but must participate as part of their obligations to the hypermarket have taken a drop of the joie de vivre out of the event. Plus, Carrefour does a half-ass job and doesn’t even provide spittoons.
Even so, if you seek something to do this Friday from 6 PM to midnight, there are worse ways to spend that time than going to the fair’s opening ceremony to drink free wine while listening to a cheesy brand and watching the unintentional comedy of wasted shoppers accidentally driving their carts into tables, shelves and each other.
As usual, I recommend bringing your own glass(es) rather than using the tiny ones provided by Carrefour (see pic below).
Whether in terms of quality, marketing or technology, Grace Vineyard has been a leader in China’s wine industry for the past decade. The next foray for this Shanxi province-based operation will involve a new blend of wine and marketing as Grace releases its Sonata label exclusively via email in an initiative that may, in part, give the country’s smaller wineries some leverage in a market dominated by a few massive producers.
CEO Judy Leissner says 3000 bottles of the 2010 vintage will go on sale in May at rmb399. She says Grace’s Yean Yean Lee has attempted to “make a very different style of wine from our existing line” via open fermentation, natural yeast and a blend of 45% each of Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot, just under 10% of Marselan and a touch of Cabernet Franc.
Leissner says the idea for email-only sales came from the mailing lists used to market and sell the so-called ‘cult’ Napa wines, although her plan has a twist.
“I think at the moment, to launch wine futures in China is immature since, for one thing, we haven’t been able to build trust between producers and consumers. Secondly, I don’t think our wines can age for long,” says Leissner. “Instead, I advocate that wines should be launched [in China] when they are about ready to drink, as in China very few people have the ability to age the wines at home.”
Leissner says she plans to organize dinners in several cities to allow people to taste the wine before it is launched and to make Weibo an important part of the outreach. In May, Grace will release a link for people to join the Sonata mailing list, with the wine sold on a first-come, first-served basis. Delivery of the wine is slated for June. The minimum order is six bottles, the maximum twelve, with delivery available throughout China.
Leissner sees the project as an experiment: a new branding method, a way to possibly increase ties between producers and end users and a way to test the level of trust between Grace and its customers. It might also be a way for China’s smaller wineries to have a fighting chance in a market dominated by the marketing power and sheer size of China’s major producers.
“Ultimately, if this works, maybe more little wineries in China can find a way to survive,” she says.
NOTE: Issue 3 of the Grape Wall e-newsletter GWoC Talk is out. Sign up here here and see a sample here. You can also follow me on Weibo here and on Twitter here and here.
What happens later this month when a restaurant hidden in a temple complex just meters from Beijing’s Forbidden City becomes the umpteenth operation to launch an online wine ‘cellar’ in China? Perhaps an enlightening moment for wine sales and education in this country.
Talk about China’s burgeoning online wine market usually focuses on heavily funded and tech-savvy firms that move high volumes at low prices. The shiny example is yesmywine.com.
When Temple Restaurant Beijing (TRB) enters the fray, it will be as an already successful and trusted business. Managed by Ignace Lecleir, well-known in Beijing for handling the opening of Maison Boulud, Temple is widely regarded as among the city’s top restaurants, scoring high for food, service, decor and attention to detail — from the pre-dinner drinks to the treats given to departing guests.
This goes for the wine list, arguably the city’s best, given its size (~800 options), range (more than a dozen countries represented with a solid lineup of Chinese wines), prices (from rmb210 to tens of thousands of yuan per bottle) and value (markups are generally more than fair for a place of this stature in Beijing).
Will Temple’s online wine effort challenge the big guys for volume, revenue or media coverage? No. But will it appeal to that seemingly elusive group of consumers in China that actually likes wine, that wants to learn about it, has the income to regularly buy it and sees it as part of an enjoyable lifestyle? I think so.
“One reason for this project is that we work with about 40 wine suppliers. We spend a tremendous amount of time to make sure we have the right suppliers, that everything is temperature controlled, and so on,” says Lecleir. “We find we have a lot of requests from customers asking if we would sell our wines [for delivery] and I thought it would be interesting to take some of our knowledge of wine and use it for the market in Beijing.”
Lecleir also notes that his particular clientele is not the reflex Bordeaux buyer often found in China. “We sell much more Burgundy, and we are selling quite a bit of Chinese wine,” he says. “Chinese people tend to want something from abroad but lots of expats and visitors from around Asia are interested in Chinese wines.”
Some project details:
Range: The cellar will start with 150 wines not already on the list. These will tend to be wines not easy to find in the market. There will be package deals available and Lecleir is looking at starting a monthly wine club at several price points.
Price: Most will sell below rmb300, with around one-third below rmb200. “The purpose is wines you probably want to enjoy when you come home, everyday drinking wines, but everyday wines made with passion and love, so maybe not from the big guys,” says Lecleir. “We see some nice biodynamic wines out of Shanghai. We’ll see if there is a market for them. Personally, I think there is.”
Service: Lecleir says the website is simple but one option will be an online sommelier. “People can have a dialogue, can ask questions in Chinese or English,” he says. “They can say, ‘I’m thinking of doing a roast chicken at home, what kind of wine would you recommend?’ And like in the restaurant, we can recommend a wine and the person can buy it or not buy it.”
Delivery: At first, it will be next-day. If the market is there, Temple will look at 30-minute to 60-minute delivery. And the restaurant will handle delivery itself rather than outsource the service. “That’s why we want to go step by step. We start with next-day delivery, so we can control everything better, and then take the next step,” says Lecleir. “If I outsource, I never know what’s going to happen.” It will also allow Temple to look after the details. “If someone orders two bottles of white plus a bottle of Champagne, we can ask if they want any of it chilled, we can offer that kind of service,” he says.
I’m not saying other sites are not making efforts to reach such niches, but that the Temple project strikes me as noteworthy since it comes from a business with a loyal following, a reputation for quality and service, and an attitude that sees online wine sales as an extended service, not as the raison d’etre.
All in all, it is safe to say this will be a work in progress, much as with Temple.
“There are a lot of question as we go live,” says Lecleir. “It’s a bit like with the philosophy of the restaurant, to start small and see what the market wants.”
Michael Fragos with the team at Helan Qing Xue (chapelhillwines.com.au)
By Jim Boyce
Wine ties between China and Australia have long been tightening: Australia has ranked as the number two source of imported bottled wine in China for years, Chinese investors are buying a growing number of Australia wineries, Chinese students head to Australia to study wine-making and viticulture, Australian winemakers and consultants head to China to learn and work, etc. It’s like a panda and a koala have gone from staring at each other from across the forest to moving within the range of a hug. Or something.
Anyway, one exchange between the two saw Michael Fragos of Chapel Hill in McLaren Vale visit Helan Qing Xue in the Ningxia region last year. Fragos, who studied Mandarin for five years during high school but noted he was a little rusty, said the trip came about after he met Li Demei, a consultant for Helan Qing Xue, on a Wine Australia tour. He wrote on the Chapel Hill website:
In late September, after visiting our key Chinese wine markets in Shanghai and Beijing, I headed north/ west to remote Ningxia. Harvest had already commenced and it was proving to be a challenging harvest as they had an unusually wet summer/ spring (average annual rainfall is only 250 mm). Over the five days I spent time in both the vineyards and winery and I was extremely impressed with the passion and technical ability of the winemakers. I was able to share our experiences, particularly during the nineties when Australia was experiencing a period of dizzy growth. The irony with any “young†winemaking country is that the most telling advance in wine quality is when you are able to trust your vineyards / grapes and from that day onwards you gain the confidence to do less in the winery.
Helan Qing Xue’s wine maker Zhang Jing completed the exchange last month during an Australian tour that included Chapel Hill, Hewitson and Yering Station.
Dean Hewitson, during a visit to Beijing last month, said Zhang would be at his winery for two weeks “to help with the harvest. She’ll do some pumping over but we also want to get her out in the vineyards to taste the grapes to see when they are flavor ripe as opposed to sugar ripe or tannin ripe.”
More details came from Beijing-based importer and distributor The Wine Republic, which represents all of the wineries named:
“Just like my travels through the Old World when I was learning my own craft, this experience of different region and hemisphere will be an invaluable addition to Jing’s knowledge-base. I’m thrilled to be able to share my experiences and the sheer power of this vintage with her,†[said Hewiston]….
Jing will witness first-hand the final stages of the 160-year-old Old Garden ripening. The oldest Mourvèdrevines in the world; Old Garden is also one of the last vineyards in the entire region to be hand-picked. “Experiencing the different ripening patterns of century-old, pre-phylloxera vineyards that are dry grown and un-irrigated is entirely different to what she would experience at home,†comments Hewitson.
I hope to have more on the exchange when Zhang returns to China.
Zhang Jing and Pierre Luigi at Hewiston (pic: Hewiston)
Winemakers Fragos and Liang in Ningxia (pic: chapelhillwines.com.au)
Australia has ranked as the number two source of imported bottle wine in China for years,
Ningxia in north-central China is in the midst of the next step of its ambitious plan to become a leading wine region — setting up facilities that can supply up to five million vines per year.
The plan, which would ultimately make Ningxia less dependent on outside sources, calls for the import of hundreds of thousands of European vines, no easy feat given current regulations that favor local growers. Word is some vines have already been shipped and the issue is getting them through regulators and into Ningxia.
The plan calls for Ningxia to buy a wide range of equipment from Europe, from customized tractors and grafting equipment to clippers andcomputers. And it will require facilities fitted with climate-control equipment to offset the effects of the dangerously cold Ningxia winters.
If all goes to plan, the facility will produce three million to million vines per year within three to four years and hit full capacity in five to six years.
It would also represent another substantial achievement for a region that in the past two years has created a new organization to oversee the wine sector (Bureau of Grape and Floriculture Development), joined the OIV as an observer member, and promoted its wines by entering overseas wine competitions, holding tastings in cities around China and hosting foreign winemakers.
NOTE: Issue 3 of the Grape Wall e-newsletter GWoC Talk is out. You can sign up here here and see a sample here. You can also follow me on Weibo here and on Twitter here and here.
Call it destiny. As the speed of sound was broken, as the Berlin Wall came down, as the time for the 100-meter dash dipped below 10 seconds, seemingly insurmountable barriers are eventually overcome.
So, too, with the 100-point wine score. Long seen by some as epitomizing the acme of wine excellence, a tiny outfit called Wine Shop Asia has done that acme one point — and at times five points — better.
“If we like the label and the bottle, we give extra points,” says Patricio de la Fuente-Saez, owner of Links Concept, the company behind Wine Shop Asia, when explaining why some of his wines have over 100 points. “Parker plus three points is our unofficial rating system!” he adds.*
Beyond the point system, the website also answers that age-old question: “Where in Hong Kong can I get a goliath of Torbreck RunRig“.
We’ve all been there. Hosting a dinner party for three dozen people, running short on time, thinking, “It’d so much easier to open just one bottle of wine instead of 30 or 40”. Enter that 27-liter Run Rig. And at less than HKD500,000, there is money left over to treat your guests to taxis home.
For smaller gatherings, consider a melchior (18 liters) of RunRig, a jeroboam (three liters) of Louis Latour Château Corton Grancey Grand Cru or a simple magnum of Shaw and Smith M3 Chardonnay.
Wine Shop Asia also sells standard-sized bottles. At the moment, they are from the Links Concept portfolio, but de la Fuente-Saez says he plans to add products from other distributors. Hopefully, delivery is also soon available beyond Hong Kong.
* He also added that the 100-plus point is simply the company’s way of having a bit of fun with scoring systems.
NOTE: Issue 3 of the Grape Wall e-newsletter GWoC Talk is out. You can sign up here here and see a sample here. You can also follow me on Weibo here and on Twitter here and here.
