China’s Grace Vineyard and Scotland’s Bruichladdich Distillery have collaborated on a series of whiskies.
Grace Vineyard, with wineries in Shanxi and Ningxia, provided 100 barrels used for its top-end red blend Chairman’s Reserve. Bruichladdich is filling them with the “water of life.”
The first batch, including 9-year, 15-year and 21-year whiskies finished in Grace barrels in Scotland, should be released soon.
(You can already find all kinds of fancy prose on expressing terroir, respecting origins, a “dialogue” between China and Scotland, and so on about this project. Guys, you didn’t cure cancer or split the atom, you stuck whisky in barrels. Take it easy.)
Anyway, this is the most recent “east-west” collaboration.
For example, Teeling Distillery in Ireland aged some of its whisky in casks used for the Pretty Pony 2013 red wine by Kanaan winery in Ningxia. Per whisky.com, production totaled 1029 bottles.
And in a different twist, baijiu producer Luzhou Laojiao has aged spirits in used imported barrels.
Grace’s Own Whisky
This is also not Grace’s first foray into whisky. The company is producing its own in Fujian province.
As I wrote in the Grape Wall newsletter in March–sign up for free here–Grace bought the parent company of Dexi distillery in 2019 for about USD2 million, a purchase supported by the father of Chan given the facility is in the family’s ancestral home of Longyan in Fujian.
Fast forward to March of 2023 and Dex aka Ceilidh filled its first barrels, guided by consultant Mike Nicolson, who worked at Diageo for 36 years, including as master distiller.
When I visited Ceilidh in January, there were already 1000 barrels, including those used for Port, Sherry, Bourbon, Bordeaux and Muscatel as well as Grace’s wines, including Syrah and Marselan.
There are also experiments such as using barrels seasoned with huangjiu aka yellow wine.
The team, including chief winemaker Lee Yeanyean, general manager Yang Yuxiang and production manager You Jiangliang are on a steep learning curve but have the processes running smoothly, from hydrating barrels to creating and monitoring the distillate to extracting barrel samples that are shipped to Nicolson, who lives in Canada.
They are also learning how Longyan’s climate affects whisky. For one thing, whisky matures faster there than in cooler climates like Scotland – it is closer to the situation of the successful Kavalan distillery in Taiwan. For another, I’m told the “angel’s share” for the first year was 10 percent versus about 4 percent in Scotland.
(During the visit, we sampled from over a dozen barrels. I’m no expert but generally enjoyed these whiskies, especially those from the Port and Sherry barrels.)
In any case, Ceilidh is part of a growing wave of whisky operations in China. That includes major global spirits players like Pernod Ricard and Diageo, baijiu giants like Luzhou Laojiao and Yanghe, established local brands like Laizhou, Goalong and Daiking, and more. There is a whisky project called Nine Rivers Distillery just a few minutes’ drive from Dexi.
I covered this scene for Wine-Searcher in 2024. See, “China Turns Its Hand to Whisky.”
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