China is a puzzle to me, at least when it comes to the wine industry there. Every time I think I understand what is going on it seems to change. My problem, I’ve decided, is that like many people, I like to put things (people, countries, wines) into neat boxes. And sometimes that works just fine. But often it is a struggle because people, places, and things are seldom just one thing. They have that chimera quality of simultaneously being many things at once.
The China (Wine) Syndrome
That’s been my experience with the Chinese wine industry. When my first wine business book, Wine Wars, appeared in 2011 many readers were drawn to the chapter on China because the very idea of Chinese wine seemed wrong. My first experience with Chinese wine, for example, was so bad it was memorable. It was a bottle of 1999 Changyu Cabernet Sauvignon that one of my students brought back from a semester in Beijing. Aroma profile: ash tray, coffee grounds, urinal cake. Poor China, if this is the wine they have to drink!
The same chapter ended with a very different idea of Chinese wine. It was Open That Bottle Night and one of the wines was the Grace Vineyards Tasya’s Reserve Cabernet Franc. It was as delicious as the Changyu was disappointing and distinctive, too. Lucky China, if this is the wine they get to drink!
Which idea of Chinese wine was real? Both, of course. And every time I have circled back to the subject I have found another face, another contradiction. No wonder I keep coming back.
Chateau Changyu Moser XV
Recently Sue and I have been introduced to the wines of Chateau Changyu Moser XV, which takes the “chimera” metaphor to a new level. The project, now more than 20 years old, is a Chinese-European partnership between Changyu wines, China’s oldest and largest winery, and Lenz M. Moser, a 15th generation Austrian winemaker. Chinese vineyards in the Ningxia region, European style.
Click here to view a 2018 promotional video about Chateau Changyu Moser XV that explains the project and shows vivid images of the winery and vineyards.
The wines, all Cabernet Sauvignon, also show some chimera DNA. They are, first of all, both reds (as you would expect) and whites. Moser is fascinated by the potential of Cabernet Sauvignon as a white wine and he goes to some effort to crush the grapes and then very quickly separate the skins from the juice before fermentation begins.
To take the chimera idea one step further, Moser makes two versions of each wine. The Chateau Changyu Moser XV Helan Mountain red and white wines see no oak at all. The Chateau Changyu Moser XV Moser Family red and white wines are oak aged. We also received a special wine called “Purple Air Comes from the East.”
Towering over the project is the final element: the chateau itself, which is quite a dramatic European chateau style building, but scenically set in Ningxia province, not somewhere along the Loire River as the photo shown here might suggest.
Variations of the Chimera Theme
How do chimera wines taste? In theory, I suppose, it could go either way. Some of those early Chinese wines we tasted were chimeras of sorts that didn’t work out very well. Since then, however, we have tasted many Chinese wines that could hold their own in any situation. How do the Chateau Changyu Moser XV wines stack up?
To find out we gathered a chimera sort of tasting group. Zari and Greg are experienced wine enthusiasts whom we have worked with before, but their experience with Chinese wines was limited to a few disappointing glasses during a visit to Beijing a few years ago.
Cynthia Howson and Pierre Ly, on the other hand, have traveled to China many times doing research for their book, Adventures on the China Wine Trail. They could evaluate the wines both in general and in comparison to the many other Chinese wines they had tasted.
The tasting dinner was very interesting. The white Cabernet wines were different from what we expected and, because of the subtle oak treatment of the Moser Family wine, different from each other, too. They were an excellent match to a smoked salmon appetizer that Cynthia and Pierre contributed.
The two Cabernet Sauvignon wines were also very different and the consensus was that the richer Moser Family wine was more satisfying and a good match to our mushroom risotto entree.
The highlight of the evening was the limited-production “Purple Air Comes from the East” Cabernet, which Pierre was especially interested in tasting. We’ll probably never have the opportunity to taste this wine again, so we’ll never know how it might age, but it impresses at this point. Zari’s chocolate stout cake was the perfect pairing.
Good News / Bad News
So we get to report good news about the Chateau Changyu Moser XV wines. The bad news is that U.S. readers will probably have to take our word about the wines because they are not (for now at least) available in this market. They are distributed in some European markets and, of course, in China.
There is one final chimera situation to report. Much of the news we heard about the Chinese wine industry is depressing. Wine consumption in China has fallen dramatically from its pre-pandemic peak. Wine sales have fallen around the world, but nowhere, I think, as much as in China. So China wine is in crisis.
But, while there is no denying this fact, it is also true that Chinese wine is thriving in terms of quality, and there are some segments of the industry that seem to be thriving. At least that’s what we found in the case of Chateau Changyu Moser XV.
Note: By coincidence, the top image on the cover of Cynthia and Pierre’s book is a photo that Pierre took when he visited Chateau Changyu Moser XV!
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