The joy of two vineyards. An iconic wine turns twenty. Fighting rot in Ningxia. Tackling whisky and gin.
We cover all that and more with Lee Yeanyean—Grace Vineyard’s chief winemaker, burger fan and beer o’clock aficionado—in the newest Grape Wall Q&8.
Lee came to China from Malaysia for harvest at Grace in 2006, became assistant to Ken Murchison and later chief winemaker, and now works between wineries in Shanxi and Ningxia and a gin and whiskey distillery in Fujian. Busy guy!
Check out our Q&8 below. Plus these vintage Q&8s with Lee:
– 2014 Q&8: How a Malaysian ended up in China, lessons of an assistant winemaker, and more.
– 2021 Q&8: The benefits of vineyards in two regions, Grace’s Shiraz promise, and more.
– 2023 Q&8: Seeking bigger yields and longer maturation, Grace’s experiments with Sangiovese, Saperavi et al, and more.
Also see my most recent posts, including Is Orange the New Red?, The Rise of Thousand-Dollar Bottles, China’s Wine Market: 2012 Vs 2024 and 30 Years of Beijing’s ‘Hutong Winemaker’.
Deep Blue
1 Grape Wall: This is the 20th anniversary of Deep Blue, the most successful wine in Grace history. Could you talk from a winemaker’s perspective about what goes into making this wine?
Lee Yeanyean: For us, Deep Blue is always a challenge. We dream of making it comparable to many premium wines on the market while keeping it at a consumer-friendly price point. I wish I could say it’s easy—but it’s not.
It took us years to refine the style we love. For me, Merlot is a standout in Deep Blue and always plays an important role. It’s so generous on the mid-palate, with notes of plum and lush chocolate, and great length. Our goal is always to have the fruit as ripe as possible, with minimal new oak influence. We aim to highlight the fruit profile over the oak profile.
[Grace EO Judy Chan says Deep Blue was named both due to the book Deep Ocean Strategy, which advocates finding success in untapped spaces–wine in 1990s Shanxi certainly qualified!–and due to feeling lost and lonely, as if struggling in a vast sea, in her early days of running Grace.]
The Shanxi Scene
2 You experienced starkly different vintages in Shanxi and Ningxia this year. Let’s start with Shanxi, where you guys have Chardonnay, Cabernet and Marselan, some Merlot and Aglianico, and more. How did this vintage compare to a typical year?
This year’s harvest was small for both Shanxi and Ningxia, as we only picked what was available from our own vineyards, with no outsourcing. As you know, market conditions this year have been unpredictable.
Shanxi was much drier than usual—it’s typically wetter during summer—while Ningxia had the opposite trend compared to past years.
Shanxi produced very good fruit, and we were fortunate to have two regions to rely on. This diversity allowed us to maintain consistent quality, even in a year like this.
[Yean has stressed the biggest gap between the two regions is acidity: “Shanxi always has beautiful acidity—sometimes too much—while Ningxia tends to have much less due to all that heat. In terms of ripeness, on a scale of 1 being less ripe to 10 being superbly ripe, Shanxi tends to be 6 to 8, while in extremely dry years, like 2015 and 2019, we might get near 10… Ningxia, on the other hand, can easily get into the 7 to 10 range, but with a bigger alcohol profile.” These contrasts open up all kinds of blending possibilities.]
The Ningxia Scene
3 And now the same question for Ningxia, where it was a disastrous year for many, at least in terms of reds–I know you guys have Sangiovese and Shiraz there!
Ah yes, Ningxia this year. Unfortunately, with the unusual continuous rain, we won’t be able to craft either Shiraz or Sangiovese due to their thinner skins. However, the rest of the reds are holding up quite well.
The wines from Ningxia will likely be less “impactful” than in previous years, but they should still be “doable” in a fresher, red-fruit-oriented style.
Fighting Rot
4 There was also a lot of disease due to all that excess rain. How did you guys manage that and how did your Shanxi experience help?
We’re so used to wet summers in Shanxi that we’ve tended to manage the Ningxia vineyard the same “Shanxi way.”
We prefer an open canopy, with fewer leaves and less fruit overlap, to promote airflow within the vineyard and around the fruit. In our experience, a lot of diseases, such as bunch rot, occur when moisture gets trapped among the bunches. Good airflow is critical to keeping them “safe.”
However, for thinner-skinned varieties like Shiraz and Sangiovese, too much moisture becomes a problem. These vines also tend to “absorb” water more quickly than others. Under such wet conditions, there’s really not much we can do to prevent the damage.
[As recently noted, Year of the Dagon seems to bring disease to Ningxia, with 2012 also quite troublesome. See: Disease and Indecision in Ningxia: Poor Grape Harvest Tests Wine Industry.]
Burgers & Wine
5 You are a big burger fan. Say we get some cheeseburgers. What Grace wines do you suggest as a pairing?
A juicy Merlot or a big Shiraz definitely goes well with a double cheeseburger. Extra cheese please.
[Yean says his burger favorite is Five Guys although he usually indulges at McDonald’s and Burger King when traveling between the wineries / distillery.]
Grace Gin
6 Gin! I taste-tested samples 18 months ago, including with over a dozen bartenders, and they were generally loved. But we’re still waiting for them to enter the market. What’s taking so long!?
Gin… it’s actually harder than we expected. It took quite some time to fine-tune the botanicals and find the right balance. That said, we now have a few products we’re happy with and plan to bottle them around December 2024.
Achieving batch consistency has been a challenge: it’s a bit like blending wine at times. Coming from a winemaking background, we’re naturally obsessed with consistency, even though it’s already tough enough to achieve in winemaking, especially as the grapes behave differently every year.
Grace Whisky
7 Whisky! It’s also been 18 months since you guys filled your first barrels. What are the biggest challenges you have faced since then?
Whisky… initially, I thought it would be an easy process, with everything automated. But it’s not. While it’s not as complicated as winemaking, even slight changes in the process can lead to completely different results.
To be honest, I’m still learning, as it’s so different from winemaking. The only real similarity I can think of is that it also requires “blending.” And blending whisky isn’t easy: tasting and nosing samples with over 50% alcohol across so many batches is a real challenge.
[The idea for making whisky goes back over 15 years to Chan’s father. More details here. And more about the overall China whisky scene here.]
The Future
8 You’ve had a unique wine life, originally coming to China for a vintage at Grace, becoming assistant and then chief maker, juggling Shanxi and Ningxia, then gin and whiskey. Looking ahead, what three things excite you most about the business?
First: How can we bring the company’s technical teams together as a whole? Maybe one day they could cross-train different products [such as wine, whisky and gin]. It would be exciting for me to see how my colleagues grow and progress within the company’s “alcohol line.”
Second: Is there a possibility of sharing something in common among wine, whisky, and gin? We have a lot of ideas floating around, but it will take time and trials to figure it out.
[Marselan-infused gin aged in used Grace whisky barrels!]
Third: I don’t have to keep eating Shanxi or Ningxia noodles all the time—switching up my diet when I’m in Longyan in Fujian province is a nice change! The soups are fantastic, they eat a lot of duck, pork and beef, and their intestines are amazing. Oh, and there are always burgers at the airports or train stations!
Check out more Q&8s here. And support Grape Wall here.
Grape Wall has no sponsors of advertisers: if you find the content and projects like World Marselan Day worthwhile, please help cover the costs via PayPal, WeChat or Alipay.
Sign up for the free Grape Wall newsletter here. Follow Grape Wall on LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. And contact Grape Wall via grapewallofchina (at) gmail.com.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.