Note: The following post recently appeared in Agenda magazine in Beijing (see online version here).

By Jim Boyce

Beijing stores shelves are lined with hundreds of imported wines that retail for less than RMB100 [USD16 / 10 Euros]. Choice is certainly not a problem, although deciding which wines are best is not always easy. This is especially true when it comes to making recommendations to Chinese consumers because so little research has been done on which wines they tend to like.

Given this, I teamed up with local sommelier Nicolas Carre and consultant Frankie Zhao, two fellow contributors to the Grape Wall of China blog, to hold a wine contest [called The Grape Wall Challenge] earlier this year. Our goal was simple: To ask panels of Chinese wine consumers and professionals to blind taste about forty imported wines priced at less than RMB100. (We asked local wine distributors to provide up to four wines each – two red and two white.) Our process was also simple: We asked the judges to put each wine into one of four categories – “I love it,” “I like it,” “I dislike it” or “I hate it.”

The professionals gravitated toward grape varieties that are common worldwide, picking Cedar Creek Shiraz-Cabernet Sauvignon 2008 from Australia (sold by Top Cellar for RMB92) as the top red, while Concha y Toro Frontera Sauvignon Blanc 2007 from Chile (Summergate, RMB79) and Bushman’s Gully Semillon-Chardonnay 2008 from Australia (Links, RMB92) tied as the top white wines.

This isn’t the case for consumers. They tended toward less commonly found wines and chose Zonin Terre Palladiane Soave from Italy (Torres, RMB96) as the top white and Foot of Africa Pinotage 2006 from South Africa (Torres, RMB99) as the top red, alongside Paso del Sol Merlot 2007 from Chile (DT Asia, RMB95).

What does this all suggest? That taste is subjective and that consumers do not necessarily like the same things as experts: not exactly groundbreaking findings, but important to point out. More interesting is that both the professionals and consumers scored white wines much higher than red wines, which is surprising given that more than 80 percent of the wine sold in China is red.

Other [high-scoring] reds include Callia Alta Shiraz-Malbec 2007 from Argentina (Torres, RMB72) and Concha y Toro Frontera Cabernet Sauvignon 2008 from Chile (Summergate, RMB79); while whites are represented by Farmese Primo Malvasia 2007 from Italy (ASC, RMB92), Stella Solaris Chardonnay 2006 from Chile (Top Cellar, RMB62), and Santa Rita 120 Sauvignon Blanc 2008 from Chile (ASC, RMB93).

Perhaps your best bet is to buy some of these wines and do your own tasting. After all, it is hard to go wrong at these prices. And if you wish to add a few more, you can try some of other top red and white wines from our contest, as determined by the combined scores of the professionals and consumers [see here].

Our next contest will focus on Chinese wines, specifically those made with grapes grown in China, since many domestic companies blend in bulk wine from Chile, Argentina, Australia, and elsewhere. In the meantime, if you are hankering to try some of the local product, your best bets are Grace Vineyard, from the north-central province of Shanxi, and Silver Heights, from the northwestern region of China. Both are distributed by Torres China.

The Grace entry-level Chardonnay and Cabernet Sauvignon retail for about RMB60 and are among the few value-for-money Chinese wines in the market. Much better is the Premium Chardonnay, at just over RMB100, the Tasya’s Reserve series, including the Cabernet Franc and the Cabernet Sauvignon, which retail for just under RMB200, and the “Symphony” Muscat that a joint team from Grace and Torres in Spain produced last year. Grace wines are also available in many hotels, restaurants, and bars in Beijing.

Silver Heights is a newcomer that is showing great potential. These wines are more expensive, starting from RMB200, and are available online from Torres China.

Finally, to go even more local, Dragon Seal sources its grapes from just outside Beijing, in Hebei Province. While the resulting wines can be inconsistent, this is due less to the wine-maker and more to the quality of the grapes. There are several decent Dragon Seal wines available for about RMB75, while the Hualai Reserve [Cabernet Sauvignon] is a better but pricier bet at about RMB220.

[Note: I would also add Helan Mountain wines to the list. I tried them yet again at the recent Hilton Food & Wine Experience and would put them on a par with Dragon Seal – a bit inconsistent but worth a try.]

By Jim Boyce

The New Yorker just published a lengthy article by Evan Osnos about ASC Fine Wines founder Don St. Pierre, Sr and his son Don St. Pierre, Jr. In it, St. Pierre, Sr comes off as a profanity-uttering, rough-and-tumble, take-no-prisoners businessman. Based on my experience, much of the language is vintage St. Pierre – I have heard it firsthand in several confrontations with him. On the other hand, while St. Pierre can be intense, there is a steep learning curve when talking to him about the wine business and few people respond to emails as quickly – English writer Jancis Robinson is another who comes to mind – even if the topic is unpleasant.

While the article is titillating as a personality profile, and includes fascinating statistics and anecdotes, I find it a bit thin because  it does not explain how ASC rose to prominence, nor – given its portrayal of St. Pierre, Sr as ruthless – include a single negative comment from a competitor aka enemy. It generally focuses on the late 1990s – an ASC wine-and-necktie gift pack promotion that started with a run of 200 and ended up selling hundreds of times more; an investment from Gernot Langes-Swarovski, of the Austrian crystal-making family, that gave ASC the capital to expand – and on the nearly one-month detention of Don St. Pierre Jr by Customs in 2008. There is precious little about what happened in between that resulted in ASC growing from a struggling company to the most prominent in China in the wine importing and distribution business.

In fact, there is more about a 1995 raid by U.S. officials of a stock of 74 million bullets imported there by the St. Pierres, before they ever got into the wine business. (The government dropped the case when it found the ammo had been legally brought in.) This makes for interesting material, as does the author’s experiences at a wine dinner and a wine education class, and obviously a great deal of research went into the piece. But, again, the question lingering in the air is how ASC succeeded. I’ll have more about this on Monday. For now, here are a few excerpts from the subscription-only article (I typed them in, so any typos, as well as the highlights, are mine):

Donald St. Pierre, Sr., founded A.S.C. Wines in Beijing in 1996, in partnership with his son, Donald St. Pierre, Jr., whom everyone calls Don, Jr. The St. Pierres were not winemakers or sommeliers. The elder St. Pierre, who had spent his early years in the automobile business, in Detroit and Beijing and elsewhere, was more of a “hot-dog-and-bourbon type,” as a former colleague put it. But they knew sales. In 1989, four years after St. Pierre arrived in the country, Jim Mann, a former Beijing bureau chief for the Los Angeles Times, pronounced him “probably the single best-known businessman working in China.” Over the years, the St. Pierres had sold, or considered selling, baby products, gas masks, photocopiers, golf gloves, scrap metal, lingerie, sugar, pistachios, and Chinese and Russian ammunition.

From further in the story:

When I joined St. Pierre at the [members-only Capital Club] recently, nearly everyone who passed by stopped to greet him. “Look at that assh0le!” he replied with a smile, his version of high praise. St. Pierre’s comfort with confrontation extends to his only hobby: golf. At a charity golf tournament in 1997, St. Pierre accused a rival foursome of cheating. The team composed of senior Communist Party officials, including a high-ranking military general and the chairman of a large arms manufacturer. St. Pierre’s friends urged him to back off, but not before St. Pierre had waved his finger and said, “You fuck off. You’re a cheater!” (His protests persuaded tournament officials to give his team a share of the winnings.) I asked St. Pierre if he thought he had ever been too aggressive. He frowned. “What does that mean? ‘Too aggressive.’ Do you like to kill your competitors or don’t you?”

His tactics have made A.S.C. China’s largest wine importer, with annual revenues of more than seventy million dollars. Jancis Robinson, a prominent wine critic in London, wrote that the St. Pierres have attained “a position in the Chinese wine scene similar to that of the Gallos in the U.S.“

And a final one:

On April 8, 2008, twenty-eight days after Don, Jr. was detained [by Customs], he was released. A.S.C. acknowledged a limited number of undervaluations, he says, and it agreed to pay back-duties and fees totaling 1.8 million yuan–about two hundred and sixty-four thousand dollars, a relatively small sum, given the company’s volume of imports. Don, Jr., was never charged with a crime. He says that A.S.C. made technical mistakes that grew out of the fluctuating values of fine wine and foreign currencies. “We were hedging Euros against dollars, and sometimes we did it right and sometimes we did it wrong,” he told me…

The wine investigation widened, and by the end of 2008 it had let to punishment in twenty-nine cases, on wine valued at twenty-five million dollars, according to a report in Legal Daily, a state-run paper. Companies were accused of doctoring invoices and “laundering documents” through Hong Kong, where there are no tariffs on wine imports. The St. Pierres did none of that, Don, Jr., says. But the case was “a wake-up call,” he told me one afternoon at his apartment in Shanghai. “No one sits you down and says, ‘You’ve arrived in China. These are the laws.’ Because people just don’t think they apply to them! And they do now.”

Note: While he was researching this piece, I talked to Osnos several times by phone re the St. Pierres and wine in China.

By Jim Boyce

The third Thursday of November is upon us and that means Beaujolais Nouveau parties (see here for more on this phenomenon). Get your plonk at one of these parties:

• Le Baie des Anges: Beaujolais Nouveau at RMB40 per glass or RMB200 per bottle.
• French Cultural Center: Beaujolais Nouveau, alongside other French wines, including Champagne, as well as live music and food from Le Petit Gourmand; 7:30 PM to 10:30 PM; RMB130.
• Enoteca: Complimentary buffet, live music, and Beaujolais Nouveau at RMB200 per bottle, from 8 PM.

Also of note:

• Scarlett: Beaujolias Nouveau party tomorrow, the 20th, from 7 PM; wine with a cold cut and cheese buffet; RMB218.
• Le Petit Gourmand: Week-long special starting tomorrow; glass of Gamay wine plus cold cut and cheese plate for RMB99 (RMB128 with two glasses). The wine is available at RMB35 per glass or RMB150 per bottle.

By Jim Boyce

Lots of wine events coming up, including this Saturday’s Hilton Food & Wine Experience (see here for last chance to win tickets and an overnight stay) and plenty of Beaujolais Nouveau parties (full list coming next week).

Of note is tomorrow’s Domaine Zind Humbrecht wine dinner with owner and winemaker Oliver Humbrecht, the first Master of Wine in France and a leader in bio-dynamics, at Maison Boulud. The fee is RMB600, fair dinkum for a quality dinner with wines at this restaurant. RSVP with Oliver Baenninger at Globus Wine – 010-5206-3020 or oliverbaenninger@globus-wine.com.

The Spanish Chamber of Commerce in China are co-hosting a wine dinner that features Galician cuisine by Jordi Villegas, including lobster, tomato, and basil salad, suckling pig terrine with truffle dressing, and pan-fried scallops. The evening includes five Galician wines and five Galician liqueurs. Details: November 13, 7 PM to 10 PM, Blu Lobster, RMB888 (pay in advance to the Spanish Chamber of Commerce), RSVP deadline November 11. To RSVP or for more information, contact info@spanishchamber-ch.com.

Summergate has announced that The Courtyard, which overlooks the Forbidden City, now has an Enomove wine cart that will allow diners to choose a glass – or a sample – of fine wine at their tables. The promotion is called “Taste Wine Food Moat”. I’m not sure what that means, but I do like the idea of tasting a few additional wines with my meal.

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By Jim Boyce

The only thing better than spending seven hours sampling from among hundreds of wines – as well as chocolate, coffee, beer, and more – at the Beijing Hilton Food & Wine Experience would be to then stumble, stagger, crawl – what have you – up to a room afterward. Alack and alas, that is beyond the budget at Chez Boyce, but one reader will get such a treat.

Once again, I am holding a contest and the winner gets two tickets to this November 14 event (1 PM to 8 PM), an overnight stay at The Beijing Hilton (valid only for that night), and breakfast the next morning at Elements.

Last year, I asked people to choose one person with whom they would like to share a bottle of wine. This year, I am asking people to write about a good wine experience they have had in Beijing. To enter, you need to leave the comment on this post at sibling site, beijingboyce.com. You also, obviously, need to be in Beijing.

The contest closes on Tuesday at 5 PM; I’ll announce the winner the next day. Even if you don’t win, try to make the Food & Wine Experience, celebrating its twelfth year – it is hard to beat a full day of gluttony, which includes a buffet, for RMB200.

For more details on the event, see here. I’ll also soon have an interview with the Hilton’s head sommelier, Julia Zhu.

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See also:

2006: The year I tried 52 wines and lost my cell phone

• Wining about the Bejiing Hilton wine fest

2007: The year I attended a seminar with Jeremy Oliver and later accidentally broke a bottle of Shiraz on the Hilton’s marble staircase

• Are you experienced? Hilton’s tenth annual wine event (2007)
• Wrap up: The Hilton food and wine experience (2007)

2008: The year Yiftach Bar described a Louis Latour Chardonnay as a “white wine with balls.”

• Eat, drink, and stay contest: Win Food & Wine Experience tickets, a deluxe room, and breakfast at the Hilton (2008)
• Hilton Food & Wine Experience: And the winners are… (2008)
• The Hilton food and wine experience: ten thoughts (2008)

Asia Wine Institute head Tommy Lam will lead three tutorials during the Food and Hotel China 2009 trade show slated for November 18 to 20 in Shanghai:

• November 19 (3–4.30): PM: How to become certified by the Court of Master Sommeliers
• November 20 (10–11.30 AM): An introduction to basic sommelier skills
• November 20 (1–2:30 PM): How to increase wine sales

Tutorials are RMB100 each or RMB200 for all three. To register or for more info, contact Francesca Xu at francesca.xu@asia-businessgroup.com or o10- 5828-7728.

Lam is also organizing the China Sommeliers Wine Challenge during the trade show. The judging panel has both international and local sommeliers, including three participants in this year’s China National Sommelier Competition (see here and here) – Hans Qu of Shenzhen Intercontinental Hotel (winner), Vivian Tian of Kee Club in Shanghai (first runner-up), and Jason Shi of China World Hotel in Beijing (second runner-up) – as well as Lu Yang of the Peninsula Hotel in Shanghai, winner of last year’s Penfold Sommelier Competition (see here). Kelvin Tay of the Pudong Shangri-la will head the panel. Other judges include Jacky Goergler from Jean Georges and Franck from Kathleens 5 in Shanghai, as well as Elyse Lambert from Canada, Andres Rosberg from Argentina, and Michael Jordan from the United States. See more details here.

See here for more details on the challenge and others events being held during the Wine & Spirits portion of Food and Hotel China 2009.

By Jim Boyce

A last-minute reminder that the Shuangjing Carrefour store holds its fall wine fair from 6 PM to midnight with hundreds of bottles to sample. Most of them are entry-level and this offers a chance to find and stock up on “house” wine, especially as most products have a 20 percent discount.

Tip: BYOG. At the spring wine fair, I brought my own wine glasses – 22-ounce Bordeaux beauties – which meant I didn’t have to use the store’s puny goblets or, even worse, plastic cups. See these posts on previous Carrefour wine fairs:

• Spring 2009: Carrefour spring wine fair: Glasses, deals, and labels with animals galore
• Fall 2008: Carrefour wine fair picks: Southern exposure
• Spring 2008: By / buy the case: Carrefour 2008 April Wine Fair

Also, as noted here, Sequoia Cafe will hold a tasting of Grace Vineyard and Silver Heights at 6:30 PM tonight.

By Jim Boyce

The Dinex Group, which represents the restaurants of Daniel Boulud in New York, Vancouver, and Beijing (Maison Boulud), among other places, is seeking managers, sommeliers, and head, sous, and pastry chefs. Dinex will hold “open call” interviews over the next week in Asia. The interviews kick off on October 27 and 28 in Singapore, before moving to Hong Kong, Beijing, and, finally, Shanghai. If you are interested in an interview, send your resume to cbilleaud@danielnyc.com.

(Hat tip to Louie)

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Don St. Pierre Sr., founder of China-based importer and distributor ASC Fine Wines, will speak tomorrow at a CEO luncheon at the Capital Club in Beijing on the topic of “Cars, Broads & Wine“. Numerous sources say St. Pierre plans an autobiography of the same name.

St. Pierre founded ASC in the mid-nineties and, after struggles in the early years, built it into a leading wine importer and distributor in China with his son, Don St. Pierre Jr. He was a key figure in a previous book “Beijing Jeep” by Jim Mann due to his involvement in China’s car industry in the eighties.

Note: The event is already sold out.

By Jim Boyce

A China-based wine importer focused on the hotel and restaurant sector seeks an on-premise sales manager in Shanghai. Fluency in English and Mandarin preferred. Experience in the wine and/or food and beverage sector a must. For more details, or to submit a resume, email Campbell Thompson at campbell@thewinerepublic.com.