French Wines Hammered...by China!!

Peter Creasey

Peter Creasey

Peter Creasey
France’s heavily subsidized signature industry—wines—got slapped in the face. By China.

In a blind wine tasting competition in Beijing on December 14, five wines from Bordeaux and five wines from Ningxia—all priced between 200 and 500 yuan—were wrapped in black cloth, tagged with a number, and served to ten French and ten Chinese wine judges. The judges spent 40 minutes tasting and ranking the wines and another 30 minutes discussing them. Then the results were announced: the top four wines were Chinese!
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Merde! Chinese Wines Did What to French Wines?

. . . . . . Pete
 
originally posted by Jeff Grossman:
Anybody here tried a Ningxia wine?
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Yes, quite a few. A lot of them were cooked in transit (to HK and Shanghai, the two cities where I tasted most of them), and the rest were anonymous.

There's a business problem in the sense that the local (if 1.3bn people can be considered local) market is willing to bear higher prices than an export market (cf. Sula in India) because of the amount of newly-created wealth, so these wines are a bit too expensive in relation to their quality level. At the same time the local market is quite immature and a favourable mention in a wine rag (especially Western ones) does wonders for marketing. Grace Vineyards is perhaps the clearest example, off the top of my head.

More crucially (for me), there's a wine problem in that these vineyards are all 'young'. There must be great terroir somewhere in China, but it's not going to be discovered overnight. I'm resigned to the fact that I will be long dead before they find the 'right' varieties for the land.

And to be honest, I think their best bet at the moment are some of the more 'esoteric' varieties like Riesling, Semillon and Gamay - y'know, wines that might actually work with what the local population eats. I remember speaking to an expat viticultural consultant in my previous line of work, and saying something to that effect, and he just shrugged. Like parts of South Africa, I'm not sure the Chinese vineyards have the right clones.

It all takes time and patience, and I wish more people would appreciate that. Like carpentry, or tailoring, where you need to let the raw material rest and find its own way.
 
I'm told that the Chinese are anxious to hire California winemakers and are offering them high salaried contracts.

. . . . . Pete
 
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