The next great wine will come from China
China is now the world’s biggest importer of fine wine, much of it sold through Hong Kong, the new wine auction capital of the world. For today’s image-conscious Chinese, a pot of tea, or even a flask of fiery baiju spirit on the restaurant table no longer cuts the chilli sauce. A £1,500 bottle of Château Lafite rather does – even given the distressing local tendency to mix it with Coca-Cola or Fanta. Rupert Hoogewerf, the British compiler of China’s “Rich List”, nevertheless reports that: “Consumers are gradually becoming more appreciative of wine, and less driven by snobbery,” and forecasts that when the current market madness (the latest must-have vintage being Romanée-Conti 1990 at around £23,000 a bottle!) calms down, China will become a huge but mainstream wine-drinking nation.
Not that Europe’s vineyards will necessarily benefit. The first home-grown Chinese “superwine” has already arrived to both rave and apprehensive reviews. Jia Bei Lan, a silky cabernet sauvignon blend, produced in Ningxia, a central province previously best known for its goji berries, recently became the first Chinese wine to win a major international trophy. Judges at the Decanter Awards in London described the £30-a-bottle brew as “supple, graceful and ripe”, and praised its “excellent length and four-square tannins”.