Part 2 - Dalian Delights: Seafood and the Wine Scene off China¡¯s North-East Coast Continued(1)
But what did this family drink? On offer was the internationally exported Tsingtao beer from another famed coastal city, Qingdao. The spelling ‘Tsingtao’ is from the Wades-Giles system of representing the sounds of Chinese characters (now defunct); but some Chinese brands/institutions like to state their age by using the early 20th Century romanized spelling replaced by pinyin after 1949 and the foundation of the PRC (the pinyin is ‘Qingdao’, pronounced ‘ching-dow’ for English speakers). There was also Chinese peach juice and the inescapable bai jiu, literally ‘white alcohol’, a category of spirits distilled from sorghum or millet which can range in flavour from delicate aniseed to rotting garbage (I don’t know how they quite manage that or what kind of ‘still’ bai jiu is actually distilled in).
We’d brought a bag of gifts with us ‡° never go to a Chinese family without bringing something ‡° which included a bottle of 2007 Lo Tengo Torrontes from Norton (from importer ASC). Torrontes is an Argentinian, highly aromatic grape (a bit like a cross between Muscat and Gewurztraminer with an oily and slightly bitter aftertaste) which, in our experience, has appealed to Chinese wine drinkers. But the Chinese never open gifts in front of people and it would have been rude to suggest chilling it. So we got talking about wine instead, over beer, peach juice and bai jiu.
Bai jiu is fairly evil in more than one respect. Although the northern Chinese like to drink it with seafood and just about anything, its very name has clouded the existence of white wine. Red wine is popularly known as hong jiu (literally ‘red alcohol’), but its correct, full name is hong putao jiu (‘red grape alcohol’). Because the Chinese know bai jiu as ‘white alcohol’ and red wine as hong jiu, many are unaware that white wine, whose correct name is bai putao jiu (‘white grape alcohol’), even exists. And, as we discovered in trying to find a wine shop in downtown Dalian, not everyone even knows that the lauded hong jiu ‡° the short-hand for red wine ‡° is made from grapes. Asking for a local shop selling putao jiu (wine in general), one security guard assured us there was nothing like that in the area, but there was a shop selling hong jiu! When Fongyee qualified ‘hong putao jiu’, the guard looked even more perplexed. But there’s nothing in the phrase hong jiu that mentions grapes, of course.
Over the prawn soup, we talked about wine. Many Chinese, although they buy Chinese wines for patriotic reasons, are suspicious of the bigger brands: Great Wall, Changyu, Dynasty etc.
Their suspicions were not allayed when we revealed the big brands blend Chinese wine with imported must (whenever another country, say Spain or Chile, has a surplus); but they were interested in Grace Vineyard and Dragon Seal as producers using exclusively Chinese grapes. The older generation like their beer and bai jiu and find wine’s acidity and the tannins in red wine to be a bit unpleasant; although many older Chinese feel they should be drinking red wine for health reasons. The younger generation ‡° in this case Fongyee’s 34 year-old cousin who works in real-estate and her husband, a tennis instructor ‡° does drink wine, but there is not much of a wine-bar scene in Dalian, outside the five-star hotels.
We knew already about Dalian-based French importer DCT Wines, run by Frederic Choux. In addition, we found an intriguing wine-bar and shop called AP Wines in a local shopping mall.
The Dalian owner spoke English and explained the wines he was importing directly. It took a while to realize that the name AP came from Australian producer, Andrew Peace, whose wines dominated the shop’s selection. All in all these looked pretty pricey by Beijing standards (e.g. well over 300RMB for a generic Coonawarra Cabernet Sauvignon) and the place had only been open a year, so perhaps business was tough. The owner didn’t let on, but was on the ball, offering a glass of 2006 Master Peace Shiraz, Andrew Peace which he apologized was a bit cold to drink as it had been stored in the fridge (at least they were trying to preserve opened bottles somehow).
AP Wines did have a few wines from France and Germany besides the Andrew Peace range. But we thought we’d shake things up a bit with our Chinese relatives by purchasing a tetra-pak, one-litre bottle of non-vintage Andrew Peace Chardonnay for next day’s feast.
