His shop was in the perfect romantic space, near Yantai’s “World Wine Walk.” The pedestrian path connects the road to the crowded sunny beach and it’s lined with facades of shops named after world wine regions. As one Chinese expert told us when we asked about these tours, if the tasting is deemphasized, it’s probably not the best part. I have two bottles, both hand-carried from China by my former student Brian West. We probably also got such calls, but since we didn’t understand them, we assumed a wrong number. Please enable cookies on your browser and try again. It’s finals week at the University of Puget Sound, so I’m thinking about the question, what wine goes best with final exams and term papers? All the papers were very interesting. I don’t think relatively expensive French or California wines have much chance of penetrating the traditional bulk distribution system where a lot of Chinese wine goes, so supermarkets are their best bet. Hard to imagine. Supermarkets may also eventually play an important role in educating Chinese consumers about wine in general and foreign wine in particular.A small number of boutique winemakers have appeared, often financed by Hong Kong Chinese families and using international “flying winemaker” expertise. I liked it! I’m looking forward to trying it. This is even more so since Jeff’s then wife had stayed in Seattle and no matter how much he emphasized he was married, he seemed to get quite a bit of attention. Although it’s only 12% volume, the Changyu Noble Dragon tastes full bodied and a whole bottle to yourself might be a bit much unless paired with the right food. People say that Grace Vineyards is the best French wine made in China. A sweet wine, to capture the sweet taste of success? It seems to me that the biggest barriers to quality wine are not in the stores or even in the habit of mixing red wine and Coke. The real roots of today’s industry were planted in the late 1800s, however, when Changyu and other wineries were founded, mainly to produce wines for the foreign communities in the commercial centers. China’s wine production is relatively small — 730 million liters compared to 2,546 million liters for the U.S. and 898 million liters for Germany. In any case, Yantai is a must-see capital for a wine tourism enthusiast in China. They care about social issues, but think about them critically. They have “soft hearts” and “hard heads,” as Princeton Economist Alan Blinder would say. Many thanks to Cynthia and Pierre and to Rowman & Littlefield for giving permission for publication here. If Grace controls the quality of the grapes then they can better control the quality of the wine. I’ve never had any Chinese wine before. Here is a brief account of what I have learned. What makes the city so special? But tastings weren’t presented as the highlight of the tours. But there is a clear effort to teach visitors about wine and viticulture, with details on each aspect of production. Time will tell. We invited him along, and he enthusiastically took even more pictures than we did. China produces about as much wine as Moldova and Romania combined — a lot of wine, but still just 2.6 percent of the global total. The unsolicited calls to his hotel room from would-be escorts took him by surprise. Wine is only as good as the grapes that go into it, or so growers tell me, and the grape supply situation in China is difficult. i His employment contract, in English, is an auction item at Christie’s. The big four are Great Wall, Dragon Seal, Changyu and Huadong. The group was among two million visitors hoping to see a magical mirage at the Penglai Pavilion, one of the four great towers of China. We never figured out why the gate that led to it was behind a giant yellow rubber duck, but this, too, was photo-worthy. Climate change and the wine industry, TetraPaks and cans: the alternative packaging of wine, Movement from niche markets to mainstream: prospects and challenges for ethical consumption in the wine market, The terroir of equality: fair trade wine, Organic wine: the beginning of redefining fine wine. Reference ID: 6656bc03bf089f05e74fbac995590fbf. Change ), You are commenting using your Twitter account. This is the basic story of my Grace Vineyard Cabernet Franc. What they produced is this natural ice wine that does not … Green wine: ideas and details of sustainable wine, Wine’s historical and modern role in religion, Of vines and witchcraft: biodynamic wine, Old world crash: wine’s changing face in the globalized market. When Changyu opened the first modern winery in China, founder Zhang Bishi had help from an Austrian Vice Consul and winemaker, Baron Max von Babo.i It is one of the first names you learn on the tour, but it could have been someone else. Wine has a long history in China, reaching back more than 2000 years to the first wine imported from Ferghana in what is now Uzbekistan. This system is worse than the European cooperatives I have read about (and I didn’t think anything could be worse than that). Yantai’s World Wine Walk: a great place for wedding pictures. The service requires full JavaScript support in order to view the website. Hopefully you’ll find some if you have a Sainsbury’s near you. One or perhaps two of the plots may be wine grapes in the vineyard regions. China’s vineyards are indeed vast, totaling six percent of the world total. It wasn’t until the 19th century, however, that more than a trickle of wine was produced or consumed. Output is now more than 40,000 cases. Martial arts stereotypes aside — did this Noble Dragon have me breathing fire? In more wine-related parlance: it reminded me of cabernet sauvignon. Researchers suggest that the grapes are chosen and grown to maximize quantity not quality and that the grapes are picked as soon as possible to minimize risk of poor weather than could destroy the crop. Most people think education is about learning the right answers, and this is certainly important, but I think the more valuable skill is learning to ask the right questions, and this is true about wine. Unlike in Napa, no one came here hoping to get tipsy. It’s a difficult question. One study I found suggested that the grapes sell for as little as $80 a ton. At the museum, the tasting was in the underground cellar, with pre-filled glasses lined up and covered with plastic wrap, leaving the white wine samples awkwardly warm. The prospect of drinking Chinese wine for the first time gave me an incentive to see what I could find out about the Chinese wine industry and market. The Wine Economist  analyzes and interprets today’s global wine markets. It was a 1999 Changyu Cabernet Sauvignon. Three years later though, on a return visit to the museum, the wines on the tour were good. I’ve never tasted Chinese wine, but that’s going to change quite soon. But I know one wine that doesn’t match up very well. The French multinational Pernod Ricard helped create Dragon Seal in 1987, for example, and Seagrams and Remy Martin have also been involved in joint ventures. We were travelling with our colleague, Jeff, an adventurous traveler with enough Chinese to get into trouble. These museums did a good job promoting wine culture in beautiful spaces, but the wines themselves seemed to be extras on the set rather than main characters. You can just imagine the condition of the fruit by the time it finally gets to the winemaking facility having passed through so many hands. I can’t believe it’s taken me this long to try it. Oak in Wine: an exploration into differences. The description is right on the money. The main project was a blind tasting of inexpensive (some were very inexpensive) Merlots. China’s Changyu-Moser is famed for its Disneyland-style château that cost £70m to build back in 2012, but its wines have come along in leaps and bounds as our roving Michelin Star chef … Chan invested USD 7 million to build a French-style Chateau. The result was a revealing first person account of wine consumer behavior. The place was designed to promote Changyu’s brand, of course, which is well known thanks to its overwhelming market share and supermarket shelf space. This process is automatic, you will be redirected to the requested URL once the validation process is complete. The tannins are solid but not overpowering, and I’d advise fans of Bordeaux’s Cab Sauvignon blends (with whom this wine shares a heritage) to give it a try. In general their analysis was thorough, pointed and objective. Good fruit would quickly get mixed with inferior fruit, so why pay more? This one’s been in oak for six months and oak integration is about right. The service requires full cookie support in order to view the website. . The Dutch winemaker that followed him turned out not to be qualified. A very interesting theoretical treatment. Wine was promoted as a form of alcohol made from abundant fruit sources (grapes, both vitis and indigenous Asian varieties, and other fruits) in order to reduce use of precious food grains for alcohol production. Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email. Don’t need go to sainsbury’s, come to me ,liangxiaohui@changyu.com.cn, Pingback: Sainsbury’s Lussac St-Émilion Review – The Wine Ninjas, Pingback: Bolney Estate Spearheads The English Wine Invasion Of China – The Wine Ninjas. We made the mistake of overfilling our schedule and requesting a meeting with renowned Chinese wine journalist, Jim Sun, just as he returned from a business trip on the erstwhile romantic evening. Cheers Russ. And we’re always the bad guys in Chinese kung fu movies. Click here to read an interview with Judy Leissner on the a blog called The Grape Wall of China, which is a good resource on the changing Chinese wine industry. It is probably not surprising that Chinese who were brought up on these mixed-fruit wines might today mix dry grape wine with fruit juice or Coke to get a more familiar flavor. The Changyu website offers to let me buy wine by the barrel, which is perhaps what I would do if I owned a restaurant or a village drinks shop where I could decant the wine into bottles, jugs, or any other available container. Although it’s only 12% volume, the Changyu Noble Dragon tastes full bodied and a whole bottle to … It turns out that this is where Chinese wine began, longer ago than you might think, in the late nineteenth century.

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