Wine Wars (Part 2)(1)
Photos: AFP and courtesy of Peter Varga, Mihalis Boutaris and Katharina Prüm
By Gao Fumao
Following last week's article on foreign wineries challenging French domination of Beijing's wine market, this week we're looking at winemakers from other lands keen to get China drinking their labels. While Europe and the US remain bigger consumers, China's thirst for good glug is growing. The country ranks in the top five for both wine consumers and producers and while the bulk of drinking is of local red wine, sales of imports (which account for about 15 percent of wine drunk here) are growing faster than those local winemakers produce.
Hungary
Rare in China, Hungarian wines are nonetheless available in Beijing supermarkets like Jenny Lou's, and in Budapest, Beijing's only Hungarian restaurant. Peter Varga, a native of Budapest believes Hungary's different geology and soil produces wines offer an alternative to French product: He points to Hungarian grapes like kékfrankos, furmint, kadarka and Irsai Olivér.
A Hungarian without wine isn't a real Hungarian, jokes Varga. Certainly, Tokaj whites are well-known, and Sopron is a respected region for reds. "French wines dominate the Chinese market but we want to see a wide range of wine sales here," explains Varga. Most Hungarian production comes as white wine, but regions like Sopron produce reds, mainly of the Kékfrankos variety.
Varga's goal is to ship 60,000 bottles to China this year. "But we think we can ultimately sell 15 million bottles here," said Varga. "Our impact on China is currently in its infancy, but will soon change because we are doing a lot of work…already in our experience locals who try them are very fond of our wines." Varga's (and Hungary's) biggest export market is Germany. To drive sales he set up a company and warehouse in Hong Kong, a major (free-trade) transit hub for Chinese wine.
Peter Varga
Varga suggests first-timers try the rich Furmint and Kékfrankos. Uniquely, suggests his Chinese assistant, Somló wine, "also known as the wedding night wine…its effects give benefits to males."
It's little known that Hungary has been bringing in grape varieties from France and Italy ever since Romans first brought vines to the central European country. Centuries of settlers/occupiers brought their grapes: In the early 16th century, displaced Serbs brought the red kadarka grape, famed for producing the robust red wine blend later known as Bull's Blood.
During the Ottoman occupation the Tokaj region, in northeastern Hungary, became known for dessert wines, much to the approval of bon viveur Louis XIV of France whose blessing remains a marketing tool for local winemakers. After the Ottoman Empire ceded Hungary to the Austrians at the end of the 17th century the latter brought grape varieties like the Blauer Portugieser. While the country's Communist period prioritized quantity over quality, a renewed interest in Hungary's traditional varieties has driven a spike in new investment, particularly in Tokaj.
