China can draw on very long tradition to be world player

IT’S not clear just how many vineyards have been planted in China, but there are
a lot. The area under vine is said to be increasing by 12% to 15% each year and
China’s wine production is substantial.
Imports of wine into China have risen too and are projected to continue rising
fast, despite the credit crisis – maybe as much as ten-fold over the next
decade.
Chinese wine can be very good indeed, as I recently discovered on a flight to
Hong Kong. I was served a thoroughly enjoyable Bordeaux-like wine from Grace
Vineyards, set up by a Hong Kong businessman in 1997.
However, many leading members of the Hong Kong wine trade stubbornly persist in
believing that Chinese wine is not as good as that produced in the rest of the
world.
Some of the Hong Kong trade’s criticisms of Chinese wine may have some validity.
In particular, it’s not acceptable that grapes can be imported into China from a
third country and then re-exported, labelled as “Chinese wine”. One Aussie wine
merchant suggested that 80% of some well-known Chinese brands were, in fact,
Chilean and even Simon Tam, perhaps the most influential Asian wine writer,
reckons that, “if every now and then a Chinese wine tastes Chilean, it’s because
it includes around 40% Chilean grapes”.
Tam points out that not all the new vineyards are planted in the best possible
locations. “Mr Wong won’t leave his farm where his family has been for four
generations just to go where the soil is perfect for growing grapes. That’s why
the new vineyards have been planted in unsuitable places where the soil is too
fertile.”
Kevin Tang, a Hong Kong wine educator, made the startling claim that the
planting of vines in the Chinese mainland is “just hearsay”.
But Tam affirms that vineyards are real (and he should know – he spent several
years going round the wineries trying to flog filters to them). Not
surprisingly, perhaps, the official line is also more considered. Christopher
Wong, Hong Kong’s Deputy Secretary for Commerce and Economic Development,
assured me that winemakers on the Chinese mainland will “develop their own
styles of wine to meet Asian needs”.
He also welcomed the decision by the International Wine Challenge to devote an
award to the best Chinese wine at a special competition to be held in Hong Kong
in November. He would prefer to see the Hong Kong trade take a more positive
attitude to Chinese wine and to work with Chinese wine producers. “We can’t
teach China how to make wine,” he admitted, “but we can teach them how to market
it.”
He also told me that some of the biggest investors in Chinese viticulture,
including Remy Martin, which has a major interest in the Dynasty brand, are
interested in developing the exciting potential of native Chinese grape
varieties.
At the moment, many of the Chinese wines on sale here are made from familiar
European varieties. But I find it hard to believe another Hong Kong merchant who
asserted that “the labelling is really suspect – they call every red Cabernet
Sauvignon, whatever goes into the bottle”.
All I can say is that the Chinese wines I’ve had back on Tyneside have all
tasted pretty much as they should. The 2003 Pinot Noir I bought in the Wing Hong
supermarket in Newcastle’s Stowell Street (where you can find quite a good
little range of Chinese wine) was unmistakably Pinot – and it didn’t taste as if
it came from Chile.
Morrison’s decided last year to list two Chinese wines under the Silk Road
label, both from the Xinjiang region in the far North West of the country. Both
are well made and fair value at £5.99. The 2005 Chardonnay is clean and peachy,
with hints of melon and pineapple. The 2005 Cabernet Sauvignon is warm and winey
with a blackcurrant jam smell and chewy, chunky texture utterly consistent with
actually having been made from fresh Cabernet grapes.
If it’s not the finest Cabernet Sauvignon I’ve ever tasted, it’s also a long way
from being the worst. Many of the new Chinese wineries, including Silk Road and
Grace Vineyards, rely heavily on foreign technical support from French or
Australian consultants. But wine drinking is not new to China.
Imports of western wine were highly prized in the 2nd Century AD and a record
exists of the planting of Chinese vineyards three centuries earlier.
Although the modern Chinese wine industry has to address the issues raised by
some of its critics, it is manifestly the inheritor of a proud tradition and it
would be folly to imagine, as the quality of the best wine already shows, that
it will not become a major force in the world market – even within the next
decade.