By Jim Boyce | Chinese wine fans in Canada have two reasons to celebrate. Not only is Silver Heights from Ningxia available, at least in British Columbia, but the premium label is cheaper than in China.

Anthony Gismondi of the Vancouver Sun included Silver Heights ‘The Summit‘ 2015 in a recent list of weekend picks, each scoring 90 or 91 points. He gave 91 points to The Summit, a blend of 65 percent Cabernet Sauvignon and 35 percent Merlot:

The nose a mix of charred wood smoke and black raspberry, plummy fruit. The attack is ripe, reminiscent of sweet black cherries, dried herbs and dark chocolate. Very New World but with a sense of balance, and full marks to a finish that is more savoury than was the sweet start.

Gismondi stated that “unlike many [wineries] in the region”, Silver Heights is “focused on quality”. That kind of talk will hurt the feelings! He added that the wine will improve with another five years of aging.

The Summit also received a 4.4 rating out of 5, based on 10 reviews, from the BC Liquor Stores site, which notes the wine is available in 17 of its stores.

Then there is pricing. The Summit is $62.99 (RMB336) while the other four picks—three from Canada, one from Italy—cost $19.99 (RMB107) to $29.99 (RMB160). That might seem pricey but it is cheaper than China, where the wine is listed by Silver Heights’ main distributor Torres at rmb468.

Why the difference? The most likely reasons are, one, Chinese wines face 34 percent in taxes in their own country, and two, the margins sought by the winery. Consider, for example, that BC Liquor Stores also has Silver Heights label ‘The Last Warrior‘ 2015, a red blend with slightly more Cabernet, that has “fresh, ripe aromas of dark fruits and a touch of earthiness with a lingering and smooth finish with soft tannins from the oak.” That one is $34.99 (RMB 187) while it is cheaper in China at rmb158.

Silver Heights ranks among the wineries that put Ningxia on the world wine map, starting with its first vintage in 2007. The family-based operation has since moved from a shed on the outskirts of regional capital Yinchuan to a far larger facility near the base of the Helan Mountains. The 2015 vintage was the first commercial release using grapes from the family’s vineyards there.

By Jim Boyce | Building China’s top wine importer and distributor from scratch might seem achievement enough for most people but represents just one episode in the colorful life of Don St Pierre, whose memoirs are a turbulent tale of no-holds-barred business fights, philandering, profanity and calling people out. No one familiar with St Pierre, who steered ASC Fine Wines to the top, will be surprised by the title Jeeps, Pretty Ladies & Wine. If they are, it’s only because they expected him to instead use the title from one of his talks, Cars, Broads and Wine.

I did a Q&A with St Pierre this week, but first a few agenda items, starting with the book’s blurb:

This story is one of business adventures, baseball, international travels, escapades with the fairer sex, and most of all the love between a father and son. Across 4 continents, 20 countries and 5 different businesses [St. Pierre] moved himself from the dirt floor farmhouse on an island in Quebec, Canada where he was born, to becoming the largest importer and distributor of wine in China.

I haven’t read the entire book but long excerpts show St Pierre is more Charles Bukowski than Charles Dickens as a writer, at least in his willingness to offend. St Pierre’s is a dog eat dog world and he’s quick to distinguish the good guys from the bad, with the latter, including “old China hands”, identified by name and evaluations like “dickhead”, “useless prick” and “asshole”. (I imagine many of his contemporaries will check to see if they merit a mention. I also imagine many will deny doing so.)

St Pierre is not shy about his sexual exploits and keeps a running record that will outrage many. Or in using profanity to the degree Californian Chardonnay makers use oak. And he dispenses business wisdom with locker room candor, including a belief that “if you dare to do something different and if you dare to become the best at it, someone will try to chop your dick off.” (That’s why my motto is be second best.) If you haven’t got my point, what I’m saying is politically correct this book is not. You’ve been warned.

You would probably guess that anyway from chapter titles like “Tehran, Iran (What Means This Word, Bullshit?)”, “One Bad Chinese Broad” and “Don Jr. Off To The Slammer.” The latter refers to the nearly one month his son / business partner spent detained in Shanghai in 2008 as part of a China Customs investigation into ASC, a particularly trying time for him (see the Q&A below).

That’s just one scary scene. Another is an intense row in Beijing with a Chinese golfing foursome, including a three-star general, that St. Pierre accused of cheating. Yikes. (There was also that time in the U.S., before St Pierre got into wine, when he became a target in the biggest seizure of illegal ammo in the nation’s history” until the authorities realized the 75 million bullets grabbed were legal and had to be returned.)

While the book covers St Pierre’s entire life, there is plenty about the wine business, both the good and bad, the victories and defeats. That includes confrontations with early partners and employees (“I could see he was a useless drifter, dumb as hell, tricky and devious,” he says of one) to creating a private label, Chateau St Pierre, in 1997 that eventually sold like gangbusters (“Don Jr. and I had to come up with a name, label design, cork type and quality, bottle design and a few other details to make a brand. Of course we knew shit about any of those things”) to the ASC warehouse burning down, all interspersed with womanizing and hanging out with buddies he loves as much as he loathes his enemies.

As a businessman, St Pierre is a doer, someone who has a high learning curve, tackles problems with gusto and is willing to take calculated risks. He also recognizes his shortcomings. His dream to become a baseball player? Despite all his efforts, he had only two of the five skills that made a complete player. “I wasn’t good enough,” he simply writes. And he recognizes the role of luck, like this fortuitous meeting in Beijing with Gernot Langes-Swarovski, who would turn into an investor, during a smoke break.

Such a lucky stroke was only possible because he was willing to take risks. You can’t win if you don’t play the game, as he might say.

St Pierre’s book spans a childhood spent throwing baseballs on a Quebec island to getting his big auto industry breaks in Detroit to settling in China, a journey that saw meant meeting the likes of premier Zhu Rongji and auto executive Lee Iacocca, not to mention a who’s who of the wine world. I expect the reactions among those who read his memoirs will be as diverse as the stories St Pierre tells. As he no doubt intended.

For the record, I first met him at a wine dinner in 2005, shortly after moving to Beijing. After the meal, he said something like, “You don’t know shit about wine. Sit down and I’ll explain some things.” We finished a bottle of Bollingers and a pack of Marlboros as he gave insights into the business.

Some five years later, I was on the Great Wall for that Robert Parker dinner he hosted, the most expensive I have attended. It remains the sole occasion I have heard “My Way” played on the harp, a song that seems a fitting theme for him.

And that brings me to two days ago.

“I’m living well on Phuket and golfing two to three times per week. And drinking too much wine once a week,” he wrote in an email. He added that his memoirs were out. I suggested an interview and sent some questions. Below are his answers, tamer than what you’ll find in the book, which is available on Amazon here.

You first came here as president of Beijing Jeep in 1985. What proved harder: building cars or selling wine in China?

Beijing Jeep was by far the more difficult business. I had to come up with solutions on my own, with no help from my bosses back home or from the Chinese partners. My letter to Premier Zhao Ziyang and my press campaign threatening to pull out [of the joint venture] was a huge gamble that worked. Beijing Jeep is a big part of the book.

You considered other businesses before deciding on wine. Why did you ultimately pick it?

My French name and being tired of ordering wine in restaurants that was on the list but not in stock. Also, strangely, our first four wineries all came from casual contacts with automotive friends. Walt Klenz at Beringer was the first to say okay, followed by Bollinger, [Australia’s] Petaluma and [Brunello producer] Col D’Orcia. All through automotive contacts.

And we heard that Premier Li Peng was discouraging the drinking of grain-based alcohol and encouraging the drinking of fruit-based alcohol, i.e. wine. I also believed that China would accede to the WTO [it did so in 2001] and that would mean lower duties. Wine was a no-brainer, even for me and my son, non-wine people.

We are spoiled in Beijing for wine, spirits, beer and food. What was the scene like in the days of Beijing Jeep? And when you began ASC?

There was only one decent restaurant in the mid-1980s, Justine’s in the Jianguo Hotel. And no place to buy wine from. I only drank Johnnie Walker Black Label in those days.

Availability was a little better in 1996 when we started ASC, but not much. Montrose was around but didn’t have much of a selection and they were lousy at getting what they had to the market place.

An ASC turning point was investment by Gernot Langes-Swarovski. What was “plan b” without that money?

Our problem was that our business was growing too fast and resulting in, guess what, cash flow problems. I believed then and now that if I hadn’t found Gernot, I would have found someone else. The business was solid.

People talk about “passion” in the wine business but success in China requires a lot more than that. What were the crucial factors for ASC?

One, our ability to identify and hire good people. Two, having both me and Don Jr. on the ground knowing how to run a business and motivate people. Three, our superior portfolio of wines. And four, paying attention to details, details, details.

In just a few months in 2008, you faced the Customs crisis, held a Robert Parker wine dinner on the Great Wall and were in talks to buy Sino-French vineyard in Hebei, just to name a few things. Could you tell us about what must have been an incredibly stressful period?

The only stressful one was Don Jr.’s detention, the toughest time in my life. And the truth was that he would have been released in 29 days regardless of what I did to get him out. [People could be detained up to one month without being charged.] It was then that I decided I had enough of China and started planning to get out. [Suntory bought a majority share of ASC about 18 months later.]

Having Parker for dinner on the wall was a delight, not any kind of problem. And the failed vineyard purchase was probably a blessing. I hear the Taiwan buyers still haven’t sold a bottle of wine. Or at least not many. [The wines are still not commercially available though some are very good.]

Will you finally admit the ASC logo is awful?

Nope. The bamboo was my idea and mandate, signifying “bend, but don’t break.”

What are the wines of choice for Don St. Pierre Sr. these days?

Drinking mainly Burgundies, whites and reds, and mainly from one of our old partners, Louis Jadot. And, once in a while, Domaine Romanee-Conti.

You can buy Don St Pierre’s Jeeps, Pretty Ladies & Wine here.

By Jim Boyce | One of China’s most intriguing wine retailers saw change at the top this past month. CHEERS founder and key investor Claudia Masueger has moved from day-to-day operations to focus on strategic planning, including possible expansion beyond China, and to serve as brand ambassador.

Maseuger started B2B wine distributor MQ in China in 2008 but saw her fortunes change after fire wiped out the company warehouse. The four-month wait for new stock inspired a shift to a consumer focus in 2011 and the launch of CHEERS. The growing chain has some 60 shops, mostly in Beijing, with Switzerland’s Movenpick becoming a strategic investor in 2016.

Taking over as CEO is Cyrill Eltschinger, who has a long history in IT. He is former CEO of Softtek China and founder of IT United, and did a long stint with Electronic Data Systems. (Here’s hoping he can get the CHEERS website working.) Eltschinger is also a founding member of the Swiss Chinese Chamber of Commerce. He plays the alpenhorn.

The executive team continues to include CFO Stefan Schuppisser, commercial director David Schaumann and chief wine consultant Angqian Niu, while COO Alice Chiu, who previously worked in China with brands like Starbucks, Haagen-Dazs and Langham Hotels, left last month to take a VP position at Reed Exhibitions.

Read more about CHEERS here, here and here.

By Jim Boyce | Little is written in English about Pigeon Hills (西鸽酒庄), a new project that might well transform China’s promising Ningxia wine region. Many trade visitors to Yinchuan have heard the “small winery, large area” spiel in recent years, the idea of settling a 200-plus kilometer north-to-south swath of Ningxia with boutique operations. There are at least 86 functioning wineries there now, most of them small, many racking up medals at contests here and abroad.

Pigeon Hills is not part of that. The powers that be, concerned those medals haven’t meant much higher sales, saw the need for some big leading brands, too. Pigeon Hills has risen from the dust in less than a year with 10 million liters of tanks, a fermentation capacity of 6,000 tons and cutting-edge equipment.

Call it an attempt at a Chinese Penfolds, at a widely-known brand that consumers trust—and trust is a key issue for local producers as they get crushed by imports—and that makes both top-flight labels and large amounts of inexpensive wine for middle class buyers.

The project is headed by Zhang Yanzhi (张言志), a Bordeaux-trained winemaker and founder of importer / distributer Easy Cellar, which handles the likes of Penfolds Max. That gives Zhang an outlet for building the Pigeon Hills brand and moving its wines. The financial means are there, too. Chinese reports state Pigeon Hills is backed by 300 million rmb raised with the help of the region’s Wine Trading Expo Center.

Liao Zusong (廖祖宋) is in charge of operations. A former assistant winemaker at Shanxi’s Grace Vineyard, he has spent time at Bass Philip and Mollydooker in Australia. More recently, he has made wine at another of Chang’s Ningxia projects, Guanlan. (Liao is also a translator, including the book The Taming of the Screw by Tyson Stelzer.)

Liao met me at Yinchuan airport on a sunny April day this year and we headed to Pigeon Hills. I’m not sure who was more tired. A party the night before meant no sleep for me except what I caught on the morning flight. And Liao had the day-to-day weariness of managing a huge project and being a new father. A friend of Liao’s happened to be on the flight and joined us.

We first recharged with lunch in Minning, a historically relevant town named for Fujian province (also known as Min) and Ningxia. China’s President Xi Jinping visited the region in 1997 as a Fujian official, on a mission to reduce poverty, and one idea was to relocate residents to Minning from harsher areas. The vineyards we drove to after lunch were planted the same year, making them ancient by local standards and seemingly shrouded in fate.

Pigeon Hill only just started using those vineyards of some 1,000 hectares. They were also used for the second Ningxia Winemakers Challenge, held 2015 to 2017 with 48 contestants from 17 nations. Backed by the wine authorities, that project gave each contestant three hectares of grapes and leeway on harvesting and wine-making. The ensuing wines showed the diversity possible from this land.

(I recently dreamed of clever Ningixia people sitting around a table and repeatedly tasting those 48 wines, made by their “old friends” from abroad, in an attempt to squeeze out the secrets of the vines. Maybe to make the “Grange” of Pigeon Hills?)

Anyway, if Pigeon Hills is able to make good inexpensive wine, say that retail for rmb100 or less per bottle, what happens to those boutique wineries with far younger vines and higher prices? Does Pigeon Hills increase consumer demand and, in turn, help everyone? Or does it create price pressure that wipes out some smaller players?

We arrived at the vineyards to find workers uncovering the vines, waking them from the five-month dirt nap that offers protection against the cold dry winter weather. Burying and uncovering vines is a time-consuming process that kills some plants and adds another challenge to making good inexpensive wines for the broader market.

We then drove to the winery, passing a plot of newly planted Malbec. Pigeon Hills is a circular site, with the perimeter defined by a high stone wall. Inside the grounds, a crew had used a backhoe to lay large trees lengthwise on an empty plot. A scene defining work in progress.

We headed into the winery. The main production area has a 4,000-ton capacity, with 42 each of 40-ton and 60-ton tanks. A smaller area next door, for superior wines, has plenty of 10-ton and 15-ton tanks.

Liao said a thousand barrels were already in use for the 2017 vintage. He showed us loads of equipment, from extra-wide sorting tables to a German press to a phone-based tank monitoring system by New Zealand company VinWizard. (A tight relationship exists between Pigeon Hills and New Zealand, with that country’s ambassador to China visiting in February.)

We then got down to an impromptu tasting: Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Gernischt, Petite Verdot, more. From barrels, from tanks. Swirling, sniffing, sipping. Liao seemed distracted, an understandable position given he was trapped tasting juice with a dead-tired Canadian instead of checking off a long list of tasks. We wrapped things up.

Liao would need all his energy to complete the tasks ahead, ones that could have repercussions not just for Pigeon Hills and Ningxia but for China wine as a whole. As if a signal of the pace required, we left the winery an hour after entering to find six trees already planted in the yard.

Note: This is just a snapshot of Pigeon Hills. Much work has been done since my visit on this and on other projects to promote Ningxia wines in a market where consumer often find the prices too high, if they trust Chinese wines in the first place. More on Pigeon Hills soon.

By Jim Boyce | The focus for many China wine observes has narrowed over the years. Talk once centered on whether “China”, a country of diverse climates, landscapes and soils, could make any good wine. Then it increasingly shifted to the most promising regions, including places like Xinjiang and Gansu, bigger than most European nations. Now, as Chinese wines gain increased attention, we hear more about sub-regions and even, in a few cases, parts of different vineyards. Yes, there were people who already talked about such things decades ago, but for many this narrower view is quite recent.

Given this, it is not surprising to see sub-regions like Qingtongxia (青铜峡) in Ningxia with dedicated on-line wine shops like this one on jd.com.

Qingtongxia is south of the regional capital of Yinchuan and just past the 200-kilometer-long Helan Mountain range’s tail. This means more wind and dryness and, in turn, less risk of vineyard disease—though I imagine the winters get pretty cold! Given the usual ample Ningxia sunshine, there is lots of ripeness to be found in the fruit here.

Check out this seven-minute video on Qingtongxia’s wine industry. For those who want to skip the over-the-top narration and just get the numbers, this area has over 3000 hours of annual sunshine, 230 mm of precipitation and a 160-day frost-free period. In 2016, it had 66 wine brands and 5,300 hectares of vineyards producing 45 million kg of fruit. Wine sales were reported at 180 million rmb.

I first started trying Ningxia wines over a decade ago and remember several tasty reds from Imperial Horse in Qingtongxia. They were notable not only for their quality but also value, welcome given some of the price tags in Ningxia. I have more recently enjoyed labels by fellow Qingtongxia labels WENS (温家), Yuhuang / 禹皇 and 甘麓, and it is good to see them easily available online. Check out the shop here.

By Jim Boyce | I did a whirlwind ten-winery tour of Ningxia in May. After stops at Pushang, known for its Marselan, and Aromes, known for a focus on natural wine, I joined writers from England, Germany and Switzerland for eight stops with organizer Changyu-Moser XV.

I’ve posted five photos for each winery as well as a write-up, a short one given that I misplaced my notes. (It happens.) I especially wanted to try Marselan, given I launched World Marselan Day this year. Here are the ten stops in chronological order.

Pushang

We started with a nice view of the Helan Mountain range that blocks the desert and heavy winds to the west. Then we headed to the tasting room. Pushang is well-known for its Marselan and we tried a barrel sample from 2017 that showed less moodiness and more vibrancy than the 2016. Winemaker Jiang Jing adds a touch of Cabernet Sauvignon but cut it from 10 percent to 5 percent for this last vintage. Ningxia Marselans can be hard to find but I did spot Pushang at Yinchuan airport, in the Xi Xia King wine shop, for rmb298.

Aromes

Aromes is run by Sun Miao and Peng Shuai, who met in high school, studied in France, are completing doctorate degrees in their home region of Ningxia, and are keen about natural and biodynamic wines. Their winery is a nondescript shed down a dusty road behind a locked gate. But the cellar is a cool place — both in terms of temperature and vibe — and stocked with wines atypical for Ningxia. The Cabernet had rich vibrant fruit and an eye-opening brambly-ness. And the tiny bottles — 187 ml — are perfect for sharing. Production is small, I think less than 20,000 bottles, but the Cabernet and Chardonnay are worth tracking down.

Changyu-Moser XV

This sprawling Loire-eseque complex just marked its fifth birthday. It pairs Changyu, China’s oldest and biggest producer, with Lenz Moser of Austria. (This is a nice fit given an early consultant at Changyu, launched in 1892 in Shandong, hailed from Austria.) CMXV includes a museum, cellar, tasting room, retail area and more, with 4000 hectares of vineyards and a capacity of over 10 million bottles. I will post separately about the extensive tasting we did. You can also check these 60 photos I posted for the winery’s fifth birthday.

Lilan

Owner Shao Qingsong made his money in the fashion business and now produces over 200,000 bottles of wine per year. This is a sleek operation that uses a gravity flow system and has a heavy focus on Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot, pretty much the regional grape default. These are ripe wines with ample oak. Lilan also used to make Pinot Noir, but this apparently was not lucrative, though Shao did open a bottle for us. I’ll have more on this winery soon.

Helan Qing Xue

With commercial vintages dating to 2005, this ranks among the region’s veteran boutique producers. Managed by Rong Jian, a former government official and key figure in kick-starting the local wine industry. I’ve often had the Cabernet blends made by Zhang Jing (below), so it was fun to try her Pinot Noir — not my thing but appreciated by the Europeans and a Marselan barrel sample. The latter was a portrait in purple: fresh and floral (think violet), with dark berry, vanilla and sweet oak aromas. Vibrant and juicy, it was bursting with personality. Anticipating the final product!

Chandon

Sibling to operations in Argentina, Australia, Brazil, India, the United States and, of course, France. Chandon launched a few years ago with a brut and brut rose, enjoyable Champagne-method bubblies sold at a fair price. (About rmb160 in shops in my Beijing neighborhood.) The lineup has expanded to include a trio of sweeter options. Chandon has a spacious and attractive tasting room and lounge. The winery’s facade (below) is meant to evoke the region’s barren winter vineyards, when the vines are buried to protect them from the harsh weather, but seems a bit depressing, no?

Kanaan

Kanaan burst onto the scene a few years back with juicy ripe reds and a pair of fun whites, one a dry Riesling, the other an off-dry white blend. It has done some fun collaboration, too, including with Teeling in Ireland, which aged its whiskey in barrels used for Kanaan’s “Pretty Pony” Cabernet blend. Kanaan also moved its entry-level whites under screw cap this year. The unexpected happened during our visit: a friend sent me a message that he was at Kanaan but unable to buy wine. He had no idea I was out back doing a tasting! I came out, we found a staff member and she eventually figured out the prices. Seems Kanaan is easier to get in Australia — via Dan Murphy’s — than in its own region! In any case, my friend ended up with Pretty Pony and the semi-sweet white, two pretty good choices.

Silver Heights

This family-owned operation helped put Ningxia on the map a decade ago when it made wine in a shed within Yinchuan city limits. Now it has much bigger facilities near the mountains and, since 2015, used its own fruit after nearly a decade experimenting with other vineyards. Gao Lin heads Silver Heights while Bordeaux-trained Emma Gao, his daughter, handles the wine-making. Along with producing Cabernet-driven blends and Chardonnay, she is working with grapes like Pinot Noir and Petite Verdot. The Emma’s Reserve, sold by magnum for about rmb2,000, was among the finest wines we tried on our tour.

Yuanshi

The staff at this stunning winery, a tribute to local stone and wood products, treated us to barrel samples of delicious Marselan. (Yuanshi also lists a few unexpected grapes, including Vidal and Petit Manseng, although I haven’t tried any of the ensuing wines.) It is hard to beat this place for sheer beauty and, after a relaxing tour, we settled down for a tasting in a cavernous events room with soaring ceilings, seating for more than one hundred, and a round window meant to capture sunlight by day and moonlight by night. One of the few wineries in Ningxia where I consistently see tourists. If memory serves, wines start at about rmb150 in the retail area.

Legacy Peak

With vineyards planted in 1997, this was long a magnet for those seeking quality fruit. Then the owners decided to use those grapes themselves about five years ago. Legacy Peak is run by Liu Hai, though it was his father, Liu Zhongmin, who planted the vines with the encouragement of Wang Fengyu, who is heavily involved in Helan Qing Xue and father of Kanaan manager Wang Fang. Lots of connections in Ningxia!

The senior Liu gave us a tour while providing historical anecdotes, like the one about a Mongolian army that invaded this area south of the Great Wall centuries ago, burned everything to the ground and gave a special fertility to the land. He also noted the royalty buried in the nearby Xi Xia tombs might give the terroir some extra oomph.

Veteran winemaker Zhou Shuzhen, who has consulted at operations like Kanaan, Jade Vineyard and WENS, turns the grapes here into some of the region’s top wines. The creamy elegant Chardonnay is a favorite while the reds are bursting with ripe fruit.

Li’s Family

We ended our trip with an unexpected visit to Li’s winery for dinner. The vineyards feature Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Marselan, Shiraz and Chardonnay grapes but the star this night turned out to be Li himself, who whipped out his guitar after a superb meal, including delectable lamb done Peking duck style, and sang songs in several languages. We’ll have to go back for a wine tasting!

All in all, a fun trip, and one that included a tasting at the wine bureau. The lineup there included a half-dozen wines from the second Ningxia Winemakers Challenge, a two-year project that featured 48 winemakers from 17 countries and in which I was involved. And also one of the tastiest drops of the trip, a shiraz from Hedong that cost an eye-popping rmb2,000. Thanks to Lenz Moser of Moser-Changyu XV for inviting me on this tour and to Chen Shu for getting me to those first two wineries.

By Jim Boyce | Call it going against the grain. Between 2011 and 2017, bottled wine imports doubled in China as producers like France and Australia posted massive gains. There was one notable exception, the United States, which saw exports to China decline over that seven-year period, leaving it with just a 2 percent share and the burden of an extra 15 percent tariff levied this year.

I wrote about this situation for Vines and Wines, including advantages U.S. wines have that makes their performance surprising.

Food safety is a key concern in China and U.S. products tend to be seen in a positive light. The U.S. also uses varieties like Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Chardonnay that consumers know best. Lots of Chinese have lived, worked or traveled in the U.S. or are familiar with its food and drink culture via the media. And there have been ample promotions, like this 21-city master class tour by California Wine Institute that took U.S. brands past usual stops like Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen to new enthusiasts.

The downside is pricing and status. U.S. wines don’t fall into the “bargain bin” category nor are they status buys like leading labels from France and Australia, notably Lafite and Penfolds. Because many importers and distributors seek huge markups, the price and traceability of U.S. wines makes them less attractive. And there is an issue of visibility: I once took a Napa Valley Vintners group on a retail tour of Beijing and we found few U.S. wine options, though we did spot a Silver Oaks knockoff. (See it on my new page dedicated to fun, fake, odd and old labels.)

This last point ties to what I think is general shoulder-shrugging by many in the U.S. trade about the China market. Unlike Australia, Chile and Italy, among others, the U.S. drinks nearly all the wine it makes, with only 1 out of every 250 bottles destined for China. Six times more that that reaches Canada. While the potential of the China market continues to lure some, this country is a source of substantial income for few.

That doesn’t mean China is irrelevant. Hong Kong ranks third by value and fifth by volume for U.S. wines, and is a gateway to continental China. But the rise of U.S wine seems at least partly a matter of timing, of waiting for an increase in taste-based consumers in a nation where wine sales are still tied to gift-giving and entertaining.

My sense is those who drink U.S. wines here tend to be in this taste-based crowd, to know more than the average buyer. This means they understand that U.S. wines are not the cheapest and are likely pickier about sourcing, thus providing insulation against dubious bottles. And while that might not translate into huge sales now, if the trend of Chinese exploring and enjoying wine continues, it at least promises a rosier future for U.S. wines.

Anyway, I covered these issues in far more detail in the Vines and Wines article. I also presented a few ideas that might help push things along, such as more promotions on a national rather than state or regional level; more appeals to Chinese who have worked, studied or traveled in the U.S., not just in well-known wine states like California and Oregon but others like New York and Virginia; and increasing U.S. wine visibility, notably in “American” restaurants, where it would seem natural to have California Cabernet by the glass instead of Chilean or Australian red. See the full article here.

By Jim Boyce | The Beijing wine bar scene is thin vis-à-vis its cocktail and craft beer siblings. Many venues struggle from day one to build enough business to survive and the list of casualties in my neighborhood, one thick with “Western” bars and restaurants, is long.

That’s what made Press Release, a speakeasy that launched 18 months ago and served its last drink this week, intriguing.

Hidden inside a restaurant on the B1 level of Sanlitun’s Topwin Center, Press Release skipped the Beijing speakeasy default of Prohibition-style drinks and decor—classic cocktails, bow tie-wearing waiters, Edison lights, old-timey knickknacks—and gave us creative concoctions, a casual atmosphere with colorful lighting, funk music to raise our spirits, and typewriters mounted on walls. And the name? Owner Issey Lin studied PR in Chicago and worked in that field in New York and Beijing, her hometown. Press Release was her first bar.

Lin’s initial menu, launched in March of 2017, included 30 wines by the glass or bottle. Three-quarters hailed from Italy, with grapes like Aglianico, Barbera and Sangiovese getting the nod, inspired in part by time Lin spent living in Milan.

But Lin went far beyond that with a list of cocktails that featured wines as ingredient. These were not lazy “take a famous recipe and simply add wine” efforts but envelope-pushing creations. And it meant lovers of wine and of cocktails, or both, could all find happiness.

I took wine trade people from France, Australia, China and elsewhere to Press Release. I enjoyed watching their faces go from doubt to delight as they tried the 032c—peanut butter-infused Bourbon topped with Sangiovese on crushed ice, with a large mint garnish—while Lin prepared new concoctions with her sous vide machine and we enjoyed funk music courtesy of a Marshall unit behind the bar.

They could follow that with another 032c, a different cocktail or a switch to wine straight up. The blend of novel location, creative cocktails, relaxed atmosphere and Lin, who patiently explained the menu whether a customer was a wine beginner or aficionado, worked well. And thus a tiny hidden venue in the B1 level of a mall became a success by going past the standard template and making wine accessible and fun for consumers.

Press Release will be missed but Beijing’s loss is Beirut’s gain. Lin and her partner plan to open a bigger place there. Rather than subterranean, it will above ground, with a view of the street. And the drinks will be more sophisticated. The idea, she says, is an Asian and Middle-Eastern all-day bar inspired by 1970s New York Chinatown.

That’s a big shift. But once thing will remain, says Lin. She’s keeping the funk music.

By Jim Boyce | Want to taste a Chardonnay made just after England squeezed Hong Kong from China via the First Opium War? Or a Château Lafite-Rothschild made during the 1860s when European missionaries were both fermenting religion in Yunnan and planting vines they brought from home? Or, for the sweet tooth, a Château d’Yquem made just after France defeated China in the Sino-Franco war?

Fine Wine Experience is slated to offer that experience on October 25 in Hong Kong with a dinner featuring European vintages from the 19th century, a contentious time in the eyes of many in China, especially vis-a-vis the nations from where these wines hail. From the bottles to the bigger picture, there is lots of history.

“To taste a wine made in the 19th century is a paradoxical experience—the wine is alive, still offering its scent and its taste 12 decades of more later,” say the organizers. “At the same time it is made by generations of people all now gone.”

Gone but certainly not forgotten.

Similar 19th-century dinners were held in 2009 and 2010 in London with Christie’s, using wine from the company’s cellar. According to the organizers, it took five years to find wines for the upcoming feast.

“Many of the bottles are ‘ex-cellars’ recent releases from the producers themselves, or have been recently examined and in some cases recorked by the estate,” say the organizers, who add that the list was built on a provenance-first basis.

Quite a list, too, with 14 bottles, including from Bordeaux, Burgundy, Jura, Sauternes, Tokaj and Madeira. And the dinner, at Arbor in Hong Kong, will feature dishes inspired by the 19th century, too.

You don’t see dinners like this very often, and they don’t come cheap, with this one priced at HKD108,000. But if you have the money and a desire for a unique experience, you can find details here.

By Jim Boyce | Why isn’t China a top-five wine producer when it is second only to Spain for vineyard coverage? This question usually leads to one source: the OIV, or International Organisation of Vine and Wine, which needs to work on its press releases.

The OIV’s global update in April did rank China as the runner-up in terms of vineyards:

Spain remains a clear leader in terms of the cultivated surface area with nearly 1 mha [1 million hectares], ahead of China (0.87 mha) and France (0.79 mha).

So why isn’t China among the leaders for production, along with Italy (4.3 billion liters), France (3.7), Spain (3.2), the United States (23.3) and Australia (13.7)?

Because not all vineyards are equal. The OIV numbers combine grapes meant for eating, either fresh or dried, and for drinking. Or both unpressed and pressed grapes. Unfortunately, you only discover that by reading the footnotes of a press release that is otherwise entirely focused on wine. No wonder the trade and media, and in turn consumers, get confused.

Anyway, China is easily the world’s top producer of grapes meant for eating. A recent USDA report predicts world production of fresh table grapes at 24.3 million tonnes for the current marketing year, with China expected to produce 11.2 million tons, or nearly 50 percent. The next nearest competitors: India and Turkey, at 3 million and 2.1 million each

Wine grapes pale in comparison. I haven’t had time to check recent vineyard stats but it’s safe to say that, at most, only 15 percent in China are dedicated to wine. For perspective, Ningxia, which has grown by leaps and bounds over the past decade, has about 40,000 hectares of wine grapes.

I wrote about this topic in 2015 when BBC, after an OIV press release, posted that China had become the second biggest wine-growing country, a statement that, to its credit, it corrected. The numbers have popped up numerous times since, including a recent story in South China Morning Post. The best solution to avoid confusion is for OIV to make as clear as the most translucent Vinho Verde just what their numbers represent.