Shandong-made wines win over the world

When Zhang Bishi founded China's first vineyard and winery in Yantai, Shandong province in 1892, there was no way he could have dreamed that, 120 years later, the wine would soon be known around the world.

Changyu Pioneer Wine Co Ltd (Changyu), the company founded by the overseas Chinese from Malaysia, has grown into one of the world's top wine producers. They export products to approximately 200 countries and regions, including Germany, Italy, and France.

"120 years ago we introduced grapes and wine making techniques from Europe, but now we have developed our own viticulture to produce high-quality wines that are competitive in the international market," said Li Jiming, chief master winemaker of Changyu.

The company now grows grapes on a total of 16,666 hectares of land in the Xinjiang Uygur and Ningxia Hui autonomous regions and Shandong, Shaanxi, Liaoning provinces, and Beijing. The land takes up a quarter of China's grape-planting areas, according to Li, who believes "seventy percent of wine's quality depends on the grapes".

In Yantai alone, the company has more than 6,000 hectares of vineyards spread along the city’s coastal areas, where they plant grapes to strict standards.

"To ensure the quality of our wine, we only raise around 250 vines per mu, or 0.07 hectares, and the grapes from each vine are only used to produce one bottle of premium wine," Li explained.

Besides managing vineyards on its own, the company also signs contracts with local farmers to grow grapes.

"The company provided us the same seedlings, fertilizer, and pesticides, as well as regular training to help us improve grape quality and uniformity," said Yao Yilin who meticulously tends to the 7.5-hectare vines in a Daliuhang vineyard perched on a range of hills on the outskirts of Yantai.

"The location's combination of sand and bedrock is crucial for draining unwanted water during picking season, which is quite suitable for growing grapes", the 31-year-old farming veteran added.

The company also sets up an information management system for each grower to give information on when and how much fertilizer or pesticide should be used.

Before picking grapes, the company has random samples taken from all the vineyards sent to its technical center where they are closely checked against 50 food safety and quality standards. Only those that meet all the standards qualify for wine production.

Thanks to its quality, Changyu"s wine is gaining popularity in global market. As early as 1915, Changyu wine won four gold medals at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco. The company's product "Changyu Jiebaina" was rated as one of the world's top 30 wine brands in the Salon International de l'Alimentation (SIAL) held in France in 2009.

Changyu is not the only one in the province producing high quality wines. Shandong is now home to 256 wine companies and many of them are leading Chinese wine brands, such as the Qingdao-based Huadong, and the Yantai-based Junding, Great Wall and Grand Dragon.

The first ten months of 2011 saw the province produce a total of 358,400 kiloliters of wine, accounting for 39.4 percent of the country's total output, according to statistics from the Shandong Grape and Wine Association.

The output resulted in 14.7 billion yuan ($2.33 billion) in sales, accounting for 57.3 percent of the country's total.

"Shandong is one of China's largest wine making regions and it produces a variety of branded wines ranging from dry red wine, dry white wine to ice wine," said Li Weiming, chairman of the Shandong Grape and Wine Association.

Wines made in the province are often served at state banquets and international summit meetings, such as the opening ceremony of the Shanghai World Expo in 2010, and the welcoming banquet of the BRICS Summit China in Hainan last year, Li added.

Shandong has a favorable natural environment that contributes to grape quality. In particular, the city of Yantai, which lies on a latitude similar to that of France's prominent wine producing region, Bordeaux, and Italy's Tuscany, features plenty of rain, abundant sunshine, favorable soil, and the right humidity. The city, home to about 70 percent of the province's total winemakers, is regarded as one of the best places in China for quality grapes.

"The sound natural and investment environment attracted large numbers of world-renowned winemakers to build branches and chateaux in the province and one of prominent examples is the Bordeaux's Château Lafite Rothschild," Li told China Daily.

Domaines Baron de Rothschild (Lafite) is located near Penglai, a district of Yantai, and will be the first vineyard and chateau in China. The project hopes to show the world that China can produce world-class wine to meet the surging demand from the domestic market, according to report by Wine Spectator.

"Faced with the competition from foreign producers, local winemakers are starting to build more chateaux to produce high-end wine and provide better services to clients," Li said. The province is now home to more than 30 chateaux, including Changyu Castle, and the Nanshan and Junding chateaux. Chateaux of all descriptions have also become a tourist attraction, where visitors can observe cellars, pick grapes, make labels with their own photos and sample some vintages.

According to an ambitious development plan released recently, the province will have an annual wine output of 750,000 kiloliters in five years, 35 percent of which are high-end wines.