By Jim Boyce | The Chinese New Year holidays are underway and plenty of wine and baijiu bottles have already been emptied! All the best to my friends here in China and those around the world for the upcoming year. And if you are a fan of fireworks, check out the videos below. The first one shows fireworks exploding from dozens of sources around my apartment in central Beijing. It’s from 2007 and is most intense display I have witnessed.
The second video that shows how close some of those fireworks were to my building. One exploding projectile sent a few cinders into my apartment!
By Jim Boyce | For a long while, the best one-two wine shop punch in Beijing consisted of Jim Yang and Hector Jiang at Pudao, two nice guys who knew their stuff. Yang moved to corporate a year or so ago, then, in October, Jiang left and resurfaced last month doing what he loves best: running a restaurant.
His new place Bo—his full name is Jiang Bo—is in the Caochangdi area and just over a month old. I’ve yet to visit but wechat buddy NomNate says he had a tasty set lunch with salmon tartare, spaghetti bolognese and a Catalonian-style flan with pineapple. For a sweet soft opening price of rmb38.
“He does wine pairings in the evening,” adds NomNate. “He’s just a very nice guy who seems to be putting his heart into something,”
This place looks especially promising given Jiang’s previous stint as co-owner of former Italian restaurant Luce and his background at Pudao Wines. In terms of wine, Jiang says the lineup is solely ‘old world’, split 30 percent Italian, 30 percent French and 20 percent Spanish, with a smattering of labels from other nations.
Meanwhile, the food focus is “simple, healthy and fresh Italian”, he says, and adds that he fresh ingredients each morning. This looks like a good place to check out after the Chinese New Year holidays.
Bo is open Monday through Saturday, 10:30 AM to 10 PM, with lunch from noon to 2:30 PM. The address is CCD300, Apartment 7, Caochangdi. Due to limited seating, it’s best to make a reservation via 13811535714.
(Panorama photo is courtesy of NomNate while the food and venue photos are courtesy of Bo.)
By Jim Boyce | I recently talked to a bunch of trade people for a Shanghai retail story in Meininger’s Wine Business International. We could only use a small portion of their comments so I’m running extra excerpts here.
One of them was Charles Carrard, vice president of importer and distributor Paradox, who covered many topics such as hypermarket trends, online wine sales, sourcing Chinese wines and the company’s experience with its own restaurants. I’ve included excerpts below.
Also see excerpts with Marcus Ford of Langton’s, Oliver Zhou of vinehoo and Simon Incontro of VinItaly. And read the full Wine Business International story here. More to come!
On the hypermarket scene, an area where Paradox is very active:
Hypermarkets are targeting real people, people who discover wines, people who are part of the middle class, and not the happy few who want to show off in a restaurant or with gifts. A few years ago, people were buying wine according to the prestige of the brand or for the packaging as they were buying mainly for gifting.
Today the big change is that customers care less about brands and more about wine, such as grape varieties or terroir. Apps and travel have made them more aware of imported wines and their value. More and more consumers go for wine to drink at home with their relatives, with gifting being only more important during Chinese New Year and Mid-Autumn Festival. What I say here is true for first-tier cities, it still not the case in second- and third-tier cities.
On the growth of online wine platforms:
Onine is a chimera for imported wines in China. Today, not a single company selling wine online makes profit, not a single one, even if some pretend the opposite. The delivery costs are huge and customers go for cheap wines, with an online price of less than 60 yuan per bottle.
It doesn’t mean this will always be the case, or that we cannot use the internet to sell wine. I believe a lot in the O2O [online to offline] model and this year Paradox will launch a new way of buying wine, in partnership with our retailers—we now deliver to more than 2,800 stores all over China.
On online retailers directly importing wines:
I cannot say too much as this might break some confidentiality I need to keep with my customers but basically there are not a lot of very successful stories with direct imports. The key to sales remains the promotional salespeople in the stores. Paradox has now more than 1,000 of these people paid every day to educate and help consumers.
For us, wine is more about people than business. For example, we run and ask our teams to run with us in marathons, in places like Shanghai and Dalian, to raise money for different charities. We believe the success of a company is based on people and being social, that we are not a only a wine and spirits importer, but have a social responsibility toward China.
So when I met [winemaker] Bruno Paumard a long time ago, we had many exchanges about his work with Hansen in Inner Mongolia. Bruno and I become good friends and I decided to list his wine in Paradaox restaurant. I wanted to show my guests that China can do amazing wines for a good price—I sell Hansen for around 200 rmb per bottle in the restaurant. I didn’t want to serve a niche with some wines around 700 rmb, even if they are very good. My job is to educate the mass market, not the niche, as the future is the middle class.
Our customers enjoyed the wine a lot, so we decided to propose it to Carrefour. Carrefour was very interested for a lot of reasons, including their position as a pioneer in China for imported wine and the wine category in general. So they wanted to be the first major retailer in China to offer their customers a Chinese wine, made by a French wine maker, with a lot of medals.
On going beyond retail by opening Paradox restaurants:
Coming from Lyon, the capital of gastronomy in France, and loving good food for a good price, I found that Shanghai was not offering what I was looking for in terms of French restaurants. I sought a simple bistro with great food quality, reasonable prices—and wine! As an importer, it was easier for us to have a wine list with great wines for very affordable prices.
I opened the restaurant in 2006 with a French chef, then my boss invested in it later, and we named it after the import and distribution company.
The consumption there is very different from retail, so it is a good way for me to understand this channel. Our wine company is 100-percent focused on off trade for now, but we never know what the future will bring.
We attract Chinese consumers, who come around 6 PM, then foreigners between 7:30 PM to 8:30 PM, then Japanese and Korean coming after dinner, around 10 PM, for oysters, Champagne and whisky.
The Chinese consumers love French food, and love to have a French guy talking to them about the wine they are going to enjoy with their meal. I consider Chinese and French very alike. We love food and drink. France has wine, China has tea, both with vintages, terroirs and different varietals. We have cheese, they have tofu! And both people enjoy having dinner for hours!
I always enjoy a lot spending time in the restaurant (when I can) to share with my customers some good and affordable bottles of wine. Especially for expensive wines, I try to keep the same price in my restaurant as in retail!
By Jim Boyce | I recently talked to a bunch of trade people for a Shanghai retail story in Meininger’s Wine Business International. We could only use a small portion of their comments so I’m running bonus excerpts here.
One interviewee was Marcus Ford, who has worked in Shanghai for nearly two decades, first at M on the Bund, then at Pudao Wines and now with the associated company Langton’s East Asia.
On three things that distinguish Shanghai from other cities in China:
The dining scene. The international restaurant scene is as good as any city in Asia. That brings interesting wines and a cosmopolitan outlook on the world of wine.
Sophistication. There are pockets of really knowledgeable consumers here across pretty much every wine style and region in the world. They may be small in number but this is the beginning of a very savvy wine city.
Visitors. Shanghai is still the first port of call for producers looking at the China market. That means the trade and consumers in Shanghai have an amazing array of choice when trade bodies or producers bring their wares for tastings and other promotions.
On the impact of more hotel, restaurant and shop employees studying wine, whether it be sommelier, WSET or other courses:
We have come a long way over the past ten years and its very exciting to see the young sommeliers and educators becoming real KOLs (key opinion leaders). There is however a difference between knowledge and experience and that won’t change over night. Please remember the modern business of wine in China is still young and will take time to mature and take shape
On consumer tastes at Pudao and, particularly, attitudes to longstanding heavyweight Bordeaux:
We sell relatively small quantities of Grand Cru Classe Bordeaux. Burgundy and fine Australian wines are a much more interesting proposition for our customers than Bordeaux. I think for the majority of high-end Bordeaux buyers in China, the declining value of the wines in their cellars is a problem. It will take a few more years for that to change. Good quality mid-priced French wines are still very important and we see a growing interesting in other regions in France.
On how he describes a wine scene with a large crowd of importers / distributors compared to just a handful of players 20 years ago:
In a word, dynamic! The Shanghai wine trade is spoiled for choice in terms of the amount of companies offering different ranges of products. I think storage and transport is still a worry for many of the smaller players and the small specialists really have to work hard to sell their wines. It’s extremely competitive these days and buyers both in the trade and at a consumer level are increasingly knowledgeable when it comes to quality and value. I still think there are too many unprofessional wine businesses here that rely on guanxi rather than product and communications to sell their wines but that is slowly changing.
On the rise of a new wave of distributors after the culling that happened when the government introduced its austerity program about four years ago:
I think its too early to say, the number of importers has bounced back again from a slight slowdown and it seems as if we are back up to around 6,000 now. I think with each new wave of enthusiasm around a particular region or category you have a wave of new entrants. After each wave the real test is in the 18 months that follow. Are they shipping more wine in to China, have the exited the game already, or are they dumping their product for cash.
Wine Australia Award winner Marcus Ford with Australia wine writer James Halliday
By Jim Boyce | Cao Kailong is the new director of the Bureau of Grape Industry Development in Ningxia, replacing the retiring Li Xueming. Given Cao was the bureau’s deputy director, the promotion suggests the Ningxia wine industry’s present course will continue.
Cao set up the bureau, originally called the Bureau of Grape and Floriculture Industry, in 2012 to help boost Ningxia’s promising wine industry. He’s been involved in a dizzying number of projects. These range from the region’s OIV observer membership to trade fairs, wine festivals and fact-finding missions to establishing a nursery with imported plant material to a pair of two-year projects called Ningxia Winemakers Challenge, the most recent of which pairs 48 foreign winemakers with local operations in a contest with over USD100,000 in prizes. (Disclosure: I helped find winemakers for this contest.)
The Ningxia wine region has quickly grown over the past decade. According to government reports, it had 184 registered wine operations and 35,000 hectares of wine grapes as of mid-2016. The region has a reasonably good climate for growing grapes, though cold winters require covering the vines. It has also been able to offer large tracts of land in contrast to regions where wineries source fruit from small farmers with few incentives to produce quality. In recent years, Ningxia has caught the eye of the world wine community. Winemakers, viticulturalists, investors, equipment sellers, writers and academics have all poured in for a firsthand look. These two photos underscore the rapid growth of the region.
Cao Kailong, shown here accepting a glass at last year’s harvest festival, is the new director of the Ningxia wine bureau.
By Jim Boyce | California Wine Institute (CWI) teamed with U.S. Ambassador to China Max Baucus and Melodee Hanes last month for a holiday tasting at the embassy in Beijing. The event felt like a cap, both for Baucus’ term and for two years of initiatives by the CWI China team headed by Chris Beros. The most notable project was a series of classes and consumer events held in two dozen cities beyond the usual stops of Beijing and Shanghai. It’s the kind of on-the-ground campaign that brings Californian wines to new audiences. For its part, the embassy has provided strong backing over that time. Baucus, whose last name is ideal for someone promoting wine, has championed U.S. labels and here is hoping that momentum continues with the incoming ambassador.
The party featured plenty of top-notch wines, starting with Schramsberg bubbly. My favorites of the evening were the Petite Syrah from Stag’s Leap and the Cabernets from Dunn, Beaulieu and Coup de Fourde, the latter with Petite Verdot and Cabernet Franc. That Beaulieu Vineyard wine—the Georges de Latour Private Reserve 2012—stood out. It was soft and sumptuous with dark fruit and cassis characteristics and restrained oak. Alan Wong of Hatsune in Beijing and Shanghai and Brad Turley of Goga in Shanghai were in charge of the food. Seeing a bowl of pickled beets reminded me of home—my Mom makes them for the holidays every year!
By Jim Boyce | Beer, cocktail and spirits fans face far better options than their grape-loving brethren in Beijing, whose hopes are raised every time a slew of wine bars opens and dashed when the same spots close or water down their aspirations. Here’s hoping the newest wave, including Buono Bocca, Fu, Vesuvio and Vin Vino, will improve the situation. But the most inspiring place of the past year wasn’t even focused on wine.
The core business of Pop-Up Beijing is interior decor. This long narrow venue stocks everything from Chinese antiques and reproductions to one-of-a-kind works by local artists to China-centric souvenirs with just the right kitsch factor. It’s a Santa’s workshop of items that draws a steady stream of newbies and loyal customers.
Pop-Up also sells a shitload of good wine.
About 18 months ago, Pop-Up opened a tiny bar on its lower level. There was just enough room for six stools, plus a few tables for two. The menu included a dozen wines picked by co-owner Glenn Schuitman, who was once global communications manager for the winery Montana in New Zealand, his home country, and knows a good drop.
Three months ago, Pop-Up took things up a notch. It knocked a hole in its west wall and expanded into a large room. In contrast to the artful clutter of the original space, the new one is more like an art gallery with wing chairs and long tables.
Pop-Up added another bar there.
So what makes this place special?
Christmas dinner at Pop-Up Beijing.
Take Christmas Day. A steady stream of imbibers arrived at the new bar to enjoy a glass or two for the holidays. Two customers relaxed in wing chairs and sipped wine. Eight people, including me, enjoyed Christmas dinner at a long table, while five others at a second table stuck to a liquid meal. And a group at the original bar drank wine and watched Home Alone, which might go against the grain of a place where the Tuesday night movies focus on 1950s and 1960s classics, but was done in the spirit of the day.
Right now snobs will be saying an interior decor shop with a mishmash of events is hardly the place to promote the glories of wine. They’re wrong. Frankly, the snobs have failed us. They support a scene that doubles as a safe space for them but is intimidating and / or boring for most everyone else. One of their favorite places once sat a mere 50 meters from Pop-Up Beijing: Bar Veloce, spin-off of the hip New York City venue, was supposedly destined to take our fair city to new heights just a few years ago. Tone-deaf to consumer desires, it lasted less than a year and is now the very popular Jing-A Taproom.
Choosing new wines for the list at the original Pop-Up bar.
What makes Pop-Up work is flexibility. It doesn’t shove wine in your face—unless you want it to. Grab a bottle, head for the wing chairs or tables, and chat. Or wander about the shop with your wine and look at the eye candy. Or enjoy a glass while taking a book-making or other class, watching a Tuesday night movie, or attending a one-off event like the annual Christmas carols session.
Should you want more info, you can check the tasting notes or ask the Pop-Up team: co-owner Schuitman is a friendly and diplomatic guy backed by an efficient staff. All of this flexibility leads to a sense of ease and enjoyment far too often lost in those bars trying to be serious.
Pop-Up has 17 wines on the menu, with more soon to come.
Snobs will also point to the menu’s size and scope, and scoff at the idea of promoting wine with just 17 options from a handful of nations. But there is merit to having a small quality menu versus a large half-ass one. I’ve tried most Pop-Up wines and, even if some are not my style, the quality is good. True, if someone likes that Pinot Blanc from Germany and wants to try another label, they won’t find it at Pop-Up. But to me it’s more important that someone enjoyed this grape, and wants to explore it further, than this place have an exhaustive portfolio.
If success is people drinking and enjoying good wine at fair prices, Pop-Up is doing a good job. And doing it regularly given the volume poured not just to walk-in customers but to guests at movie nights and classes and one-off events like national day gatherings.
Of course, no place is perfect. Because the main business is interior decor, the staff might not have the luxury to hang out and chat wine when antique and chandelier sales get heavy. And those seeking old vintages or pricey labels will be disappointed. Then there’s price: some might balk at paying rmb60 for a glass of wine—or even rmb40 during the daily happy hours from 5 PM to 7 PM. Fair enough. But on the flip side, the bottles are as equally inexpensive, starting at just rmb180. It almost feels like those prices were chosen to encourage customers to bring a friend and share a bottle or two.
The new bar in the foreground and the original one in back.
By Jim Boyce | I figured writing a story about Beijing sommeliers would be easy. Meininger’s Wine Business International (subscribe here) sent me a few examples of top-ten lists for New York and Sweden. It seemed like a simple matter of using those lists as a guide for covering the local market.
I was wrong. The optimism of a wine scene with phenomenal growth in areas such as imports, online sales and course attendance doesn’t fully translate to sommeliers.
For one thing, their numbers are limited.
“There are three, maybe a maximum of five, full-time sommeliers in Beijing, those focused solely on wine,” said Weiley Lu of Wine Room. “And I don’t think there will be many more soon.”
For another, so is their power.
“Even if you offer something nice, the sommeliers don’t have the power to add it,” said Vicente Muedra of importer Sommelier International. “They don’t want to upset the system.”
The hours are long and the pay relatively low, and that inspires sommeliers to leave for other jobs or to move up the ladder, to restaurant or food and beverage manager, where there is more power.
That’s not to say the scene lacks potential. Trade people are flocking to courses, such as those by the WSET. And annual competitions like the Junior National Sommelier Competition draw over a thousand applicants. It’s just that it hasn’t translated into a thriving sommelier profession in Beijing just yet.
At least that’s what I found in doing this story. Among the trade people cited are Bruce Lee (Summit Wing), Dorian Tang (ASC), Frank Hao (Tavola), Hans Qu (Cuatro Sol), Ignace Lecleir (TRB), Kerry Qin (Rosewood), Larry Yang, Li Meiyu (Park Hyatt), Lu Yang (Shangri-La), Lynne Chen (TRB), Max Chong (Peninsula), Vicente Muedra (Sommelier International) and Weiley Lu (Wine Room).
Get the full version—printed with permission—here in pdf form and here in jpg form.
A screenshot of the article in Meininger’s Wine Business International. Click for the full pdf.
By Jim Boyce | Behind the fleeting headlines about flourishing wine imports in China lies the enduring reality of actually selling that stock. Wine retail is a tough game with constantly changing rules. Or, more accurately, like dozens of games, with each region and demographic niche having its own challenges.
When it comes to China wine retail, Shanghai is arguably the most intriguing game of all, a city that processes one third of wine imports, has the most disposable income per capita in China and offers a history of openness to foreign products and practices.
The most recent issue of Meininger’s Wine Business International (subscribe here) includes a story I wrote (jpeg / pdf) about Shanghai wine retail. It covers shops, restaurants, hypermarkets, online vendors and more. A few quotes:
“I would say Shanghai nurtured the first group of people that really started to drink wine for its quality, that cared about what’s in the bottle.”—Oliver Zhou, vinehoo.com
“My feeling is young professional females who know what they like, and see wine as part of their lifestyle, are a bigger part of the market in Shanghai.”—Campbell Thompson, The Wine Republic
“More wine bars, such as UVA, Salute and Funkadeli, offer local consumers a typical Italian ‘aperitivo’…. [They] may shift to southern Italian wine like Primitivo and wine from Sicily, or turn to more expensive bottles such as Barolo, Brunello and Amarone.”—Simone Incontro, VinItaly
“Platforms like Tmall and JD.com, that’s actually where people go and shop for whatever they need, from a toaster to a bottle of wine.”—Alberto Fernandez, Torres China
“We attract Chinese consumers, coming around 6 PM, then Westerners between 7:30 PM, then Japanese and Koreans after dinner, around 10 PM, for oysters, Champagne and whisky.”—Charles Carrard, Paradox
The article also includes quotes from Alberto Fernandez of Torres China, Andrew Tan of 1919, Marcus Ford of Pudao Wines, Tommy Lam of China National Sommelier Competition, Vicente Muedra of Sommelier International, and last but not least, Thomas Sammons, the former U.S. consul in Shanghai who wrote about the scene in 1916.
Get the entire article in jpeg form here and pdf form here.
Shanghai remains the most dynamic wine city in continental China. Click the image for a pdf of the full story on the retail scene there.
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By Jim Boyce | Paradox will open its third French restaurant and wine bar, a sibling to venues in Shanghai and Suzhou, next month in Beijing.
Backed by the wine distributor of the same name, Paradox should pop its first cork on Workers Stadium West Road about Valentine’s Day, says Charles Carrard, the company’s vice president and GM. That’s more good news for a city that has seen wine bars Fu, Vesuvio and VinVino open in recent months.
While the wine list will lean heavily toward France, there will be options from around the globe, says Carrard. He stresses that higher-end French wines will list for about the same price they sell for at Carrefour, welcome news for Beijing consumers who often face very high restaurant markups. Paradox will also sell wine from Hansen, the Inner Mongolian winery it teamed up with a month ago.
Expect food favorites such as cheese and cold cut platters, escargot, steak tartare and cream brulee. The current Paradox venues also offer daily deals, such as burger nights on Mondays and a free glass of wine with each main course bought on Fridays before 9 PM. One special featured a dozen French oysters for rmb280, with the option of a bottle of Muscadet for rmb108. Here’s hoping that one makes it to Beijing.
Paradox is named after the “French wine paradox”, the observation that French citizens have a low rate of coronary heart disease despite a diet rich in cholesterol and saturated fat, a situation some believe is due to high red wine consumption.
I’ll have more on this venue soon. You can also check out the venues in Shanghai and Suzhou.
Note: Photos are of Paradox Shanghai.
Sign up below for my free China wine e-newsletter. See here for ways to support Grape Wall. And check out sibling sites World Baijiu Day and Beijing Boyce.
