By: David Boyer

David Boyer — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 01:32:58 +0000

Wine in China is indeed an interesting phenomenon fueled by fast, or perhaps meteoric economic growth in the past couple of decades or less. Being kind of an old guy myself, I remember the same thing happened when other nations were capitalizing on the leading capitalist nation in the world. When Japan was king, they came to America and bought up many of our national treasures (icons like Columbia Corp – now Sony, and the Empire State Building, etc) and generally spent money like drunken sailors. They came and went (and still have not recovered economically) and then came the oil money from the Middle East. Pretty much the same thing.

I remember in the early ‘80s asking a wine merchant why I could no longer find a nice red Burgundy anymore and he calmly explained to me that the Japanese had bought many of Burgundy’s very small vineyards in the region and that it was difficult to get Burgundy into US wine shops because much of the low output was being shipped to Japan. What could a young man do but move on to California Pinot Noir, which was really not even a close comparison at that time? Now China, and it’s really not surprising.

Sadly they are absolutely raiding our cellars in America (because we are letting them), to the point that if things keep going this way in the next decade, only a handful of Americans will be able to afford to buy Classified Bordeaux and Grand cru Burgundy. The latest auction results reveal that ’82 Château Lafite-Rothschild is selling for about $4000 a bottle again, near its all time high in 2007. Château Petrus is selling at even higher prices and all of this is due to our nouveau riche Chinese friends. And trust me, when all the Lafite and Petrus are drained from this country, we’ll beg to be friends with them.

Right now the Chinese are on track to acquire western goods of luxury and wine is certainly considered part of that. As I have mentioned before, it wasn’t that long ago that the Chinese were mixing Lafite with Coke and ice, simply because they didn’t know any better, but are now becoming more acclimated to western cultural influence and at least serving it properly.

As far as China growing world-class grapes, it really is doubtful. First and foremost is the problem of climate as the mentioned in the post, secondly it takes many, many years to figure out what grows best where, and at least for now if it doesn’t have the European or the western image of greatness, no one in China will care about Chinese wine. Oh, and one other interesting fact: many Asians have a gene that makes them allergic to alcohol. This alone will limit their growth in any kind of domestic wine market.

Chinese wine buyers today are only interested in having bragging rights attached to their collection. Maybe being allergic to alcohol helps account for some of their amazing productivity? I know I’d probably get more done if I didn’t’ think about wine all the time.

David Boyer
classof1855.com

By: Christian G.E. Schiller

Christian G.E. Schiller — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 13:10:04 +0000

Very interesting posting. I have also written about the emerging wine country China here:

http://www.schiller-wine.blogspot.com/2010/03/emerging-wine-giant-china-mouton-cadet.html

Comments on: Chinese Wine: Challenges & Opportunities

By: David Boyer

By: Christian G.E. Schiller