Evan Osnos, Letter from China, “Reds,” The New Yorker, November 23, 2009, p. 60

 ABSTRACT: LETTER FROM CHINA about wine in China. Donald St. Pierre, Sr., founded A.S.C. Fine Wines in Beijing in 1996, in partnership with his son, Donald St. Pierre, Jr. In 1989, four years after St. Pierre arrived in China, Jim Mann, the former Beijing bureau chief for the L.A. 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, and Chinese and Russian ammunition. After acquiring an importer’s license, the St. Pierres bought a Hong Kong shelf company, Asia Solutions Corporation. Château St. Pierre was California bulk red wine, bottled at a factory in Beijing. No bottle cost more than forty-five yuan—less than six dollars at the time. Wine was never popular in China. Many Chinese called it “red liquor,” if only to distinguish it from “white liquor,” or baijiu, the ferocious grain alcohol that was far more prevalent. But, as China opened, the prospects for wine improved. In late 1998, St. Pierre produced two hundred wine-and-tie gift boxes and sent them to PriceSmart, a big-box discounter in Beijing and Shanghai. Before the season was over, A.S.C. had sold two hundred thousand gift boxes. The following year, the promotion was repeated, and the year after that. Mentions the Capital Club. St. Pierre’s aggressive 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, compared the St. Pierres to the Gallos in the U.S. The St. Pierre’s leveraged their size and reach to lure wine labels away from rivals. From 2004 to 2006, A.S.C.’s revenue increased an average of forty-six per cent each year. Then, on March 6, 2008, the Smuggling Prevention Department of the Chinese customs service launched an investigation of wine importers on suspicion of “falsifying prices.” One target was A.S.C. Fine Wines. Don, Jr., was imprisoned temporarily at Shanghai Detention Center. Donald St. Pierre was born on an island in the Ottawa River, and he worked for international Jeep operations at American Motors in the early eighties, then became president of Beijing Jeep and, later, China Automotive Components Corporation. In the mid-nineties, St. Pierre and his son embarked on a new business: importing Chinese and Russian gun parts and ammunition into the U.S. In May, 1995, agents from the F.B.I., the A.T.F., and customs service raided the St. Pierres’ warehouse in Santa Clara, California, and seized their entire inventory, accusing them of illegally importing ammunition that had been banned one year earlier. Five weeks later, the government dropped the case. In the past few years, the St. Pierres have found themselves in high demand from European winemakers. By now China is the world’s fifth-largest wine consumer. Mentions Frédéric Engerer and Bob Miao. The detentions of Don, Jr., and Carrie Xuan, an A.S.C. vice-president, prompted unflattering commentary about China’s wine trade. On April 8th, twenty-eight days after Don, Jr., was detained, he was released. A.S.C. had acknowledged a limited number of undervaluations, he says, and it had agreed to pay back-duties and fees totaling 1.8 million yuan. Don, Jr., was never charged with a crime.

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