I don’t join many wine dinners because you always hope to show up at 7 PM and leave at 9 PM but end up returning home at 3 AM. How does that happen!?

But I did join the Lucashof tasting at Hulu last week because 1) I haven’t seen China rep David Kempf for years, not since he was at Chateau Nine Peaks in Shandong, and 2) I want to learn more about German wines.

Everyone and their Bruder in Germany talks about family history and soil — usually in denominations of millions of years. For Lucashof, it means fourth generation for wine-making, and third generation commercially. For the soil, we’re talking 250 million years, when the Rhine Valley was a seabed. Read the winery materials and you’ll see the word “Jurassic”, too.

These guys, handled in China by Wines 529, are in Pfalz, a key German wine area. And also into organic grapes and minimal intervention in the cellar, with natural yeasts, slow ferments and all that stuff. You don’t sense much oak influence, and when it is in play, we are talking big old barrels, anywhere from 1200 to 4500 liters and 5 to 45 years old.

OK, let’s talk about the wines.

The bubbly–Riesling Secco 2018–is a nice drop. Crisp and refreshing, with a ripe red apple character that takes on some toast, sponge toffee and lime elements. A capable palate opener. (price per bottle this night, minimum six bottle order, rmb120)

The Weissburgunder 2015 (rmb120) aka Pinot Blanc, with pear aromas and hints of white pepper and diesel, got more complex later with honeysuckle, smoke and slightly burnt toast smells. Meanwhile, the Pinot Gris 2017 (rmb125) was fuller, with mild stone fruit and whiffs of almonds and Honey Nut Cheerios. Pleasant acidity. These two were okay but the best was yet to come.

The single vineyard Deidesheimer Herrgottsacker Riesling 2018, described as “Premier Cru” to us, had peach, peach flowers and diesel aromas. Clean pure fruit with grapefruit character on this, with a crushed lime sensation at the finish. And also the best value, IMHO, at rmb125 on this night.

The “grand cru” single vineyard Ungeheuer Riesling 2017 was a very different drop. It had an initial grassy aroma–did I get a hint of marijuana?–that later took on loads of citrus plus some eucalyptus and stone fruit. A fresh fruity wine with good acidity and concentration. rmb145.

Finally, we had the sweet wine, Forster Pechstein Riesling Auslese 2007, with deep honey and apricot character. Fresh and sweet, but not sticky, a nice finish. It’s rmb290 — personally, I think your money is better spent on two bottles of those single vineyard wines.

Phillip Lucashof, who makes the wine with his father, presided over dinner. I made him say the names of areas near his winery–Musenhang, Lugisland, Wachenheim–in an Arnold Schwarzenagger voice. (No, I did not. And yes, I know Arnold was born in Austria, not Germany.)

He’s a recent wine-making graduate and travels the world to promote his wine in Lucashof’s key markets: China, Netherlands and US, including Kentucky and both Carolinas.

Also, superb service from the staff at Hulu as usual.

I later took Lucashof and Kempf on a tour of the nearby area, including Groovy Schiller’s and XL, whose investors own the Nearby the Tree in Qingdao, where Kempf lives, and Pi Bar. Unfortunately, and this was a first for me, we saw not a single customer at any of these places. What happened Beijing, not a soul out, even on a crisp Monday night? Maybe they were all at home saving their money to buy some Ungeheuer.

(Apologies for any typos on the German names.)

As a veteran in tourism and event planning, Zhang Dongli has a long history of pairing France and China. Zhang’s most recent project, Bordeaux Fete Le Vin, aims to get them raising far more glasses, too.

Zhang’s life in wine began with the French Tourism Office in Beijing, where she promoted French cities and assisted tourism agencies and programs. That led to projects involving Bordeaux and specifically Saint-Émilion: she was the first tourism officer for China and handles Jurade de Saint-Émilion activities here. It also led her to the Bordeaux Wine School, where she became a CIVB-certified trainer.

On top of this, Zhang started a company to import Bordeaux wine and held events featuring regional brands. And, further strengthening the China-France link, she is establishing a winery in the Ningxia region with the help of veteran Nicolas Billot-Grima, whose first wine-making job in China was at Huadong winery in Qingdao in the late 1980s.

But it’s the Bordeaux Fete Le Vin that currently offers much promise, especially given both France and Bordeaux have been losing market share in China in recent years, especially to New World upstarts Chile and Australia. Reaching new waves of consumers will be essential to maintaining, and possibly boosting, the Bordeaux presence in China.

As I mentioned in this post, the organizers of the first Bordeaux Fete Le Vin funded me to join their three-day festival in Beijing’s Miyun County and I caught a ride there with some French diplomats and chamber of commerce people. What struck me most about the event, aside from the scale of Gubei Water Town, at the foot of the Great Wall, was the chance to reach new consumers.

Events such as Simply Bordeaux, the annual Grand Cru tour, and wine dinners tend to draw trade people and consumers who are already aficionados. Fete Le Vin can draw these, too, but also complete newcomers who stumble upon the festival as part of their trip to Gubei. Given it costs quite a bit of cash to visit, from entrance fees to transport and accommodations, these are people with some disposable income. And it can be scaled.

“If we can establish a successful Fete Le Vin in Beijing, we can then do it in other cities,” says Zhang.

Zhang says she decided to launch this first festival in Beijing after much consideration. After Miyun County was finalized, she says it was an 18-month process to opening night, one that involved both officials and wine producers there.

“The festival is also a good way to also increase interest in Miyun’s wine,” she adds.

Though that didn’t stop people from questioning the move.

“A lot of people in Miyun asked, ‘Why organize a festival for Bordeaux, why not promote Miyun wines?'” she says. “But places like Fangshan [in Beijing] and Yantai [in Shandong] have wine festivals that are not very successful. Bordeaux’s Fete Le Vin is a big brand, it’s already successful in many countries, so it’s good promotion for Miyun County.”

Zhang is essentially a bridge between France and China. Between Bordeaux decision-makers on one side, like CIVB’s marketing director Christophe Chateau, and Miyun officials on the other, such as He Lijuan, vice chair of the county Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference committee, and a driving force behind Gubei, and Yang Shan, who is responsible for Miyun’s handful of wineries.

This first festival didn’t come without challenges. While Miyun County is in Beijing, it hasn’t hosted events such as a Bordeaux Fete Le Vin. And red wine is still not widely popular in northern China.

“In Shanghai, in the south of China, a lot of people drink wine. Here in Beijing, in the north, people still drink Chinese liquor [baijiu],” explains Zhang. “Those who do drink usually don’t do it outside or by the glass. They usually do it in restaurants with a meal.”

With lessons learned from the three-day event, she is looking ahead to the next festival.

“Next year, Bordeaux will offer more wine and send more people — teachers, winemakers and VIPs,” she says. And that’s good for Miyun.

“Bordeaux is already famous,” she adds. “If Miyun wants to be famous for wine, they need to build their brand, too.”

Veteran French critic Michel Bettane visited Beijing two weeks ago and I joined his Chinese wine tasting. I’m interested in voices such as Bettane’s because France, Italy and Spain are leaders as wine producers but UK people and institutions, and to a lesser extent US ones, are dominating the criticism, education and publishing scenes. That seems crazy to me.

Anyway, Bettane delivers a blend of dry wit and sharp observations and had us chuckling and rethinking our assumptions. Ten comments by the quotable Bettane.

(Also see my interview with Bettane and his partner Thierry Desseauve in 2013.)

Wine and Civilization

“The blends [at today’s Chinese tasting] are better than the individual varieties but that is not a surprise to me. Blending is the beginning of civilization. It’s like a chef who is able to use individual ingredients to make a great meal.”

In other words, Cabernet Sauvignon is a bit barbaric alone, but add a splash of Merlot and Cabernet Franc and things get civilized.

Barrel Quality

“Perhaps the oak is not up to the quality of the wines. Perhaps French barrel makers do not sell their best barrels to China.”

Bettane cited numerous wines as having oak problems, the evaluations ranging from “poor” to “bad” to “bad bad” to “atrocious”.

“Oak-y Wine”

“The problem here is not the oak, it is the fault of the wine. My friend always says, ‘You never have too oak-y wine — you have under-wined oak’.”

I say something similar when I do something wrong: Don’t blame me, blame society.

Planting Vines in China

“Complexity is not democratic even in a communist country.”

In other words, making good wine means getting good grapes, and good blends of weather, soil et al are not distributed evenly across China. “It’s not a simple matter of putting vines in the soil,” says Bettane.

Cabernet Gernischt

“You can pull out the Cabernet Gernischt and graft on to the rootstock.”

In other words, he’s no fan of Cabernet Gernischt, said to be Carmenere, a grape many link to the start of China’s modern wine era with Changyu in 1892. We tried two Cabernet Gernischts. He said the first had green pepper aroma and “curious fruit”. The second? “For me, a wine without any interest.” Ouch.

A Ningxia Winery

“The way that the vines were planted, they will age too quickly. Not too dense, lots of space, maybe not the best quality of Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot. They planted what they could find in nurseries. Plus, there is the difficult weather.”

Bettane spent a week touring Ningxia in 2012. And this was one of the top wineries.

A Chinese Moscato

“It’s well-made but it’s easy to make Moscato in a closed tank. If you have no beer to drink on a summer day, why not [drink this]?”

Next time Bettane visits my house, I know what to serve if the Duvel runs out.

The 69 Chinese Wines We Tried

“The technical quality of the wine was very good.” “The wine-making is very precise.” “Nothing yet is very great and complex — but it’s heading there.”

Finally, I sat beside Bettane during lunch. I told him I was writing about new French initiatives to reach the Chinese trade and consumer, such as Shanghai Vinexpo, Bordeaux Fete Le Vin and Lafite Longdai.

Masters of Wine

“The first generation of Masters of Wine were very good. The second and third generations have many bad tasters. Yes, there are some good tasters but also many bad tasters. It’s all about money now.”

This was after I asked him what he thought about France, Italy and Spain leading production but UK institutions / critics dominating criticism.

Spreading Wine in China

“The smaller cities need retail shops where consumers can touch wine. There are many cities with 500,000 or a million people. People there can buy online, but they need to come into contact with wine and get some information and ideas about what to buy.”

Also check out my post about tasting Chinese wine with Bettane.

Fate has delivered me unto the land of Canaan thrice in two months. This winery, founded in 2006, and its sibling Domaine Franco-Chinois, founded in 1999, are in Huailai County, just outside Beijing. And they’ve been making some of China’s most intriguing wine for years, although those are only now making it to market.

My latest visit was yesterday with a small trade group, hosted by Richard Li and including some bigwigs from the media and Grace Vineyard, another winery putting out good drops for decades. Here are my tasting notes / scores.

Riesling 2017

These grapes hail from Canaan’s highest plot, at 1200 meters, planted in 2009 with Chardonnay, Gewurtztraminer, Pinot Noir and more.

The one smells of sweet stone fruit and honeydew melon, with a whiff of that tell-tale Riesling diesel aroma. It’s smooth, with pleasant acidity and a hint of pepper. Guzzle guzzle.

Score: 127 points.

(Yes, I just broke the 100-point scoring model. How high does my system go? That’s for me to know and you to find out.)

Chardonnay ‘Mastery’ 2018

This unoaked Chard is the kind of wine that can get punished by competitions and consumers. It has loads of acidity that get it labeled a “food wine”, and it took some time to open up.

This starts with a kind of pine-y smell that slowly evolved to guava, grass and a touch of butter. It’s in the mouth where this wine really delivers: it’s lean, crisp and mouthwatering, with an enduring tingly finish. I’ll write more soon: this lovely wine was at Vinexpo Shanghai, too, and I went back four times to try it.

Score: 152 points

(The Chinese characters on the labels read “Shi Bai Pian“, roughly mean “100 Poems”, and refer to famed Chinese poet and boozer Li Bai. It’s the name under which Canaan is bottling its wines.)

Chardonnay Reserve 2016

This one flips the script on the last one with a butter-y tropical fruit character. One person called it “Sonoma cougar juice”, as it evoked the rich Chardonnays often found in California and, apparently, enjoyed by older woman into younger men. I dunno, I live a sheltered life. Anyway, as rich as is this Chardonnay, it also gets the acidity down and is pretty skillfully balanced.

Score 117 points

Pinot Noir ‘Mastery’ 2017

Wow wOw WoW, this wine teased and tamed our noses and taste buds with a steady flow of aromas and flavors during our two-hour tasting. I wrote down a dozen descriptions, led by fresh cherry, toasted nuts and vanilla. This one is fresh and elegant, with enduring berry intensity at the finish. It was the first bottle we finished — then we had another.

As we are shifting from whites to reds, I’ve decided to also shift my scoring systems. Because the name of the game in China is higher, higher, higher.

Score: 1.32 million. Yes, it’s true, this is China’s first million-point wine.

Syrah Reserve 2014

This is the first wine from Canaan’s lower plots, at 500 meters, which also host the Cabernets, Merlot, Marselan et al.

This one is hard to peg. It’s like grape jam meets graphite. On one hand, you get rich deep dark fruit. On the other, aromas like graphite, smoke and coal. “Juicy, big, spicy: rambunctious” is what I ultimately wrote. Maybe this one needs more time to age–or the wine equivalent of a chill pill. Still undecided about this wine.

Score: 1 million. Give or take 100,000 points.

DFC Reserve Blend 2011

Another divisive wine. This one is a sleeper for sure, with intense dark berries taking their sweet smoky toasty time to wake up. Good pure fruit and slightly spicy tannins. I kept a glass of this to the side for several hours hoping for it to dazzle but it was still pretty drowsy until the end. Maybe it needs decanting? Or we were too drunk to appreciate it?

Score: 1.12 million

DFC Marselan Reserve 2013

DFC planted the first Marselan in China, a grape that is now found growing and creating buzz across the country. (I founded World Marselan Day in 2018: check it out!)

Again, lots of dense fresh dark fruit but with more complexity than the blend, including some black olive and smoky character. This one is pretty big and fresh, too, with a kind of graininess that inspires people to write “chewy”. It felt like a bit like a juggler trying to keep six balls in the air. Not that that’s bad, only that it had a lot going on.

Score: 1.25 million

The last three we tried after dinner started, when we were already feeling pretty good. I don’t have any notes, so I’m going just on memory. I’m also going to change my scoring system again

Pinot Noir ‘Mastery’ 2016

This one was fruity and playful — lots of red cherry! — but lighter and less complex than that delectable 2017, IMHO.

Score: It’s a three-point shot that bounces off the rim a few times before going in the hoop.

DFC Marselan Reserve 2011

Yes. A smooth supple wine that blends richness and elegance. Black fruit — plum, currants, berries. Smoke. Give me more. More. More.

Score: A winning goal scored bicycle-kick style from just outside the penalty box in extra time.

DFC Petit Manseng 2015

This late-harvest wine has pretty intense apricot aromas, and is pretty sweet, though not viscous. Look at that colour and you pretty well know what I’m talking about. Petit Manseng is one of the original grapes planted at DFC in 2001 and I’ve been waiting for it to come onto the market since 2005. About time, guys!

Score: Pretty, pretty good,

OK, those are some quick notes, posted mostly because the longer I wait, the more likely I am to forget to do it. Will add more details later, but have some Maovember stuff to do now. Thanks to Canaan and DFC for the tasting!

China wine veteran The Cellar Rat posed an intriguing query recently as I wrote up some China wine import stats.

“If Penfolds were a country, where would it rank?”

(He also added, in time for Halloween, “The over-reliance of Penfolds for the Australian wine category is scary.”)

Let’s try to answer The Cellar Rat’s query. And, given reliable stats are hard to find, remember this is speculative.

Neither TWE, which owns Penfolds along with many other brands, nor Wine Australia gives stats on the company’s exports to China, at least not to me. But sources familiar with the numbers peg the TWE share of Australia’s total at 30% to 40% by value and 10% to 15% by volume. Let’s use the mid-points of 35% by value and 12.5% by volume.

Given China import data from January to August 2019, TWE represents 10.3 million liters of Australia’s 82 million liters of bottled wine. That would rank it sixth in the market, with double the volume of the United States or Portugal, and 40 percent of Italy’s share. That’s also as much as South Africa, Argentina and Germany combined. Australia imports, without TWE, would also fare well and remain a strong second behind France.

That’s pretty impressive. But nowhere as impressive as the value story.

A 35% slice of Australia’s USD 553 million in sales to China totals a cool USD 194 million. (Yes, all that Penfolds Grange and Bin Whatever does add up.) That’s the same revenue as Chile, roughly double Italy or Spain and eight times more than the United States. Only France, and Australia without TWE, have more. A key side effect is Australia’s value per bottle drops significantly once you remove TWE from the equation.

So, given those volume and value numbers, TWE easily ranks at nation level when it comes to wine in China. And Penfolds Nation is a notably strong one.

Since I calculated these numbers, there was some debate about a claim made by Ian Ford at Vinexpo Shanghai that Penfolds represents 66% of Australia’s bottled import value to China. Ford says it’s based on the first six months of 2019 and calculated using customs import stats, both by brand and item.

Others wonder how the number can possibly be that high, especially given past data, warehouse capacity and their gut feelings. I’m going to do a separate post on this but, just for fun, let’s plug that 66% into our data from above. (I’m using my eight-month data because it’s already really late and it’ll be easier.) Here we go:

Crikey. That gives Penfolds three-quarters the value of France. And as much value as Italy, Spain, the US, Portugal, Argentina, South Africa and Germany combined, with USD80 million to spare. Plus double all the rest of Australia, a dependence The Cellar Rat has noted as scary.

Is that number accurate? I guess we shall see! More on TWE / Penfolds soon. And if you find this and other posts on Grape Wall useful, please consider helping support this site — this is the time of year hosting fees come due — via Paypal or Wechat.

Trade people are going wild on WeChat over pics of Chinese president Xi Jinping and French president Emmanul Macron enjoying wine at the China International Import Expo today in Shanghai. My feed has featured a fast flow of the pair these past few hours. And ‘enjoying’ is perhaps not the best word as Xi doesn’t exactly seem comfortable, but both were definitely putting grape-based liquids in their mouths. And apparently some meat, too.

“[On] Tuesday Macron and Xi clinked glasses at the Import Expo in Shanghai, as the focus turned to trade and French culture,” writes Euronews.

“‘I felt that he was discovering Languedoc wine, that he didn’t know it, that he appreciated it,’ said Macron. ‘He tasted the three meats, so Charentaise, Limousine and Salers have good days in China, I hope the Chinese market will take them over’.”

Photos included the French Pavilion stand for Pernod Ricard, which handles powerhouse brands like Mumm’s Champagne, Martell Cognac and Ricard Pastis. Pernod Ricard is also exclusive distributor for DBR Lafite’s China wine Longdai.

Anyway, Gerard Bertrand is in lots of photos. And Jean-Marie Pratt of LIBER, who doubled as sommelier. is in even more.

The French pavilion wasn’t Xi’s only stop, as state media reported:

“Accompanied by French President Macron, Xi Jinping first visited the French Pavilion. Macron warmly invited Xi Jinping to taste French red wine and beef. French entrepreneurs at the scene rushed to Xi Jinping and said that French companies are optimistic about the Chinese market and hope to further expand exports to China. Xi Jinping pointed out that China’s consumer market is very large and can meet the diversified needs at different levels….

“Xi Jinping [then] entered some national pavilions. Tanzanian cashews, Greek food and art, Italian wines, Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee and rum cakes, Indonesian palm oil, Russian helicopters and cars, were all dazzling.”

Yes, people were posting photos of that Italian wine, too, apparently a Moscato d’Asti.

What next? As one person asked, “When will President Xi give President Macron a taste of Chinese wine?”

The winemaker at Ningxia project Xi Ge (Pigeon Hill) had a harmonious answer as he published a poster with wines from both countries.

It’s about to happen! We blind-tasted 10 Chinese wines and French critic Michel Bettane is commenting on each one. Bettane reaches wine seven–it got my highest score at 16 out of 20 points–and I wait to see if he also noted vibrant fruit tamed by French oak, albeit pretty heavy wood.

His verdict?

“Atrocious,” he begins. “This is really bad oak. Bad bad oak.”

He threw more criticism at number seven– cruel, Monsieur Bettane, very cruel! — while I tasted the wine again on the sidelines.

I still liked it. Let’s agree to disagree, shall we, Michel?

This happened on Sunday in Beijing as we gathered to see how Bettane evaluates wine. I arrived exhausted from our Maovember launch party on Friday and 42-km Mao-a-thon on Saturday but happy to be trying 60-plus wines

I’ve joined quite a few tastings and contests where judges taste dozens, even hundreds, of wines to decide “medals” and scores out of 20 or 100 points. Retailers use those to sway consumers overwhelmed by the vast universe of brands and vintages.

Are they useful? Sure. Are they fail safe? Not always, with wine seven a good example for me.

Let’s leave aside how well the highly trained palates of judges connect with general consumer tastes. And the degree to which trying so many wines — with a few minutes for each — might cause fatigue.

Here are five quick notes from someone lucky enough to glance into this judging world on occasion — and who should probably spit more.

Bettane

We did indeed see how Bettane judges. His opinions on barrels (an oak-y wine is better described as “under-wined oak”), wines for aficionados versus “every man”, the importance of fruit ripeness and quality oak. He talked of seeking Chinese wines with unique styles versus those that simply remind him of French ones.

It was good to see some debate, some push back from the other judges, and occasionally from those who, like me, were tasting and observing–as well as Bettane’s counters to those comments.

Marselan

Given I started World Marselan Day in 2018, and people are calling this variety “China’s grape”, I wanted to see Bettane’s views on this Cabernet Sauvignon-Grenache mashup created in France.

“I’m slightly disappointed,” he said and noted he found more interesting Marselans last year. Opinions included “[this one has] intensity but also vulgarity” and “strange” with a “truffle-like element.” Hmm, sounds like food pairing would be easy with that last one.

Better luck next year, Marselan makers of China! Also, for the guys who are charging over rMB3,000 (USD400+) per bottle? No thanks.

Syrah / Shiraz

My favorite flight, with a grape doing well in China, including by Grace in Shanxi and Hedong in Ningxia. (Please, Chinese wineries, much less Cabernet Sauvignon, and Cabernet Gernischt, and much more Syrah.)

My favorite was number four: vibrant, smooth and gulp-able — I wrote “young, fresh, purple” — with an attractive spiciness on the finish. Good tannins. Turns out it is from a fairly new winery, “Sweet Dew”, in the Qingtongxia region of Ningxia. Nice!

This flight received good feedback from the judges, Bettane finding all but one wine pretty good and saying “Syrah suits some places in China far more than Cabernet Sauvignon.”

Blends

I was kind of shocked to see the labels revealed for the first ten blends, especially as I gave fairly low scores for some highly regarded brands I had often enjoyed. Maybe they seemed less appealing after a flight of those pulsating-with-flavor Syrahs?

Bettane found this flight, near the end, to be the best yet, especially vis-a-vis the Cabernet Sauvignon flight. Then again, he prefers blends. (“Blending is the beginning of civilization.”) Surprisingly, several high-profile brands did not top the scores.

His overall evaluation: “Nothing yet is very great and complex but it’s heading there.” He also again stressed a desire for local authenticity. “I don’t want to find a match for France. I want to find a Chinese style.”

Power vs Elegance

In two flights, I found myself with a wine that went against the grain — lighter, fresher and more playful than its bigger oakier competitors. It threw me off and made me realize it would be easy to deem these less serious. (I talked to a few experts who said outliers can make judging harder.)

I did give good comments simply because I answered “drink” when I asked myself “Do I want to drink or spit these?” Turns out one was Xiao Ling from Yunnan, the other was “Deep Blue” from Grace in Shanxi, a wine I always thought oak-y but, in terms of the 2017, was lighter than most others. Anyway, it highlighted the impact of tasting order.

Overall

“The technical quality of the wines was very good,” said Bettane while pondering the 69 wines tasted, an admittedly small pour given what is now available in China. “The wine-making is very precise.”

He added that the problems of oxidization and brettanomyces are much more common in France than in what he tasted here.

Bettane also addressed what wines are produced and where in China. For example, Ningxia vines are buried each winter as protection from the dry cold.

“Vines don’t like to be pulled up and pushed down. It’s not a simple matter of putting vines in the soil,” he said. In other words, the right blend of soil, weather et al is not distributed evenly across China.

“Complexity is not democratic even in a communist country.”

Nevertheless, he said it was exciting to see the evolution of wine. He noted the potential of Syrah. And said the Chardonnay was “better and better”. He also gave a nod to Pinotage as a potential grape given it is less finicky than Pinot Noir, especially for areas with water shortages. “Why not try Grenache?” he added, especially as a wine for blending.

No matter what, however, the odds are China, like many other wine producers, will likely stick with the tried and true.

“All around the world, you can select from all of the varietals, but you will often end up with Cabernet, Merlot, Pinot Noir… perhaps Malbec.”

Note: Thanks to Guillaume Zhuang, who heads Bettane+Dessauve for China and hosted the tasting in the Tao Rantian art gallery and wine space he founded via import and distribution company Vinotache. I joined primarily because I am writing on new French wine projects in China such as Bordeaux Fete Le Vin and Shanghai Vinexpo. Zhuang also hosts monthly B+T wine events. Thanks also to the B+D team for an invitation to dinner later that night, where we had superb wines and good talks about the China scene.