“WINE IS INHERENTLY ASSOCIATED WITH THE LAND AND CAN BE USED TO PROMOTE THE REGION AS A WHOLE”

Wang Shenghan, owner of wine education platform Lady Penguin.

After completing her bachelor’s degree in the US, Wang attended a sommelier program in France before returning to China in 2014. She believes that the boutique wines that sell for over 500 RMB per bottle will ultimately face a limited audience.“At that price, you are only targeting wealthy bosses for their business dinners, who can buy whatever foreign brand they want.”

With over 3 million followers on social media app Douyin (TikTok),Wang has become a Chinese KOL(key opinion leader) on wine. She used to offer a subscription service that introduced drinkers to a wine bottle each month, and has since started her own label that sells entrylevel wines to novices, focusing on the 28 to 88 RMB per bottle price point.

Although she promotes some Chinese wines on her platform, Wang notes that they still carry a stigma.Early in her company’s development,she included a bottle from Grace Vineyard in her subscription service.Although the pick was high-quality and retailed for more than 300 RMB,“I was contacted by angry customers,asking why I sent them a Chinese wine,” she recalls.

Chan notes that a lot of people thought she was crazy when Grace Vineyard first released its Chairman’s Reserve. “It was 2003 and China was dealing with SARS and no one thought Chinese would pay that amount of money for a bottle of domestic wine.” Now listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, Grace Vineyard produces about 1.5 millionbottles a year, with entry-level wines starting at 72 RMB.

Jim Boyce, a blogger on Chinese liquors, agrees that reputation is one of the biggest challenges for “Made in China” wines moving forward. “For a lot of Chinese consumers, their view on Chinese wines is based on probably some cheap, bad wine that they tasted in college,” he comments.

Wang says that most large Chinese wine companies have historically focused on dry red wines, which many Chinese find too sour or acidic.Claiming that “a dry red wine is just like a girl without any makeup;without the coverage of sugar, she reveals all her problems,” Wang believes that Chinese vineyards should transition to whites and sweeter wines that better match the Chinese palate.

Hong Kong native Isabella Ko,who has worked in Beijing’s food and beverage scene since 2011, remembers that the market used to be flooded with fake wines—something which may render customers additionallywary about Chinese wines. Although fakes can be difficult to detect,many in the industry think that the government could raise consumer confidence by tightening regulations.

Li of DFC believes that the central government should adopt an AOC(Appellation of Controlled Origin)law, ensuring that a food or beverage product actually comes from the region advertised and meets certain standards. “We need a law that says that if a bottle was produced in Ningxia’s Helan Mountains, you know without a doubt that it was actually made there,” he says, noting that China’s last pertinent law on wine was part of food sanitation regulations passed in 2007.

Ironically, some foreign wine brands are jumping wholeheartedly on the“Made in China” wave, even if the trend hasn’t entirely taken off among consumers. International headlines have heralded the rise of Chinese wines, with stories about luxury champagne producer Mo?t& Chandon opening up its own sparkling wine enterprise in 2017, not far from Silver Heights in Ningxia.Its parent company, French luxury conglomerate LVMH, opened up a new vineyard called Ao Yun in Yunnan province in 2013, with bottles of vintage now available starting at 300 USD.

“NATIONALISM IS THE ACE UP THE SLEEVE OF THE CHINESE WINE INDUSTRY”

Many in the industry are hopeful that domestic wines will shake their stigma in the next five years, noting the recent meteoric rise of brands across many industries, like athleisure label Li Ning, that capitalize on being homegrown, often with patriotic undertones. “Nationalism is the ace up the sleeve of the Chinese wine industry,” Boyce predicts.

Ko is also counting on it—in 2018, she opened up a wine house and restaurant in Beijing’s historic Dongcheng district called The Merchants, focusing on highquality Chinese ingredients and wines. “Soon, Chinese domestically produced wine will be like Napa Valley wines in the United States,”she predicts. “Not only will people drink them because they are delicious,but because they are proud of their country, being able to visit the vineyards and buy them locally.”

Consentino, who is now the Cellar Master for Chateau Nine Peaks winery in Qingdao, notes that big brands like Great Wall and Changyu are best positioned to benefit from the“Made in China” wine wave due to consumer awareness, but that their spotty quality is ultimately holding them back. She believes that as small wineries continue to develop their personalities by experimenting with vineyards and cellar techniques, they could ultimately gain the most.

In spite of the hype, DFC’s Li cautions that wine consumption in China remains quite low—baijiu liquor consumption is 16 times more than wine consumption on a per volume basis. Equally concerning to many is that—in spite of the boutique wineries popping up—wine production in China actually seems to be going down; in 2018, it dropped by around 40 percent.

Blogger Boyce isn’t panicked by the numbers. “I think that production could have been vastly overestimated before and now we are seeing the real numbers,” he says. “There was a lot of double counting going on, where someone would produce wine and sell it to someone else, who would also count it as production.”

Lady Penguin’s Wang, though,doesn’t question the numbers, noting that international wine imports have also fallen. But rather than believe that the so-called “Chinese wine boom” is over, she calls this a “healthy” development, as there had been a trend in the market for buying wines and not drinking them, creating a bubble. The central government’s continued crackdown on corruption and gifting culture among public officials may also have had an impact.

The situation is puzzling to Boyce.“Chinese wines are winning awards and getting good reviews, and Chinese consumers have more money than before. Yet the industry is still shrinking,” he comments. He believes the reason is that most wineries are still focused solely on wine-making,rather than marketing, selling, and distribution.

The case of DFC may support this idea: The winery just started selling their bottles commercially for the first time in 2019, exactly 20 years after the first vines were planted. Li comments that they are in the process of creating a successful brand, but the jury is still out.

“CHINA IS STARTING TO PRODUCE TOP-LEVEL WINE, BUT NOBODY KNOWS WHERE OR HOW TO BUY THEM”

“The project started in 1997 and it took three years to prepare the land to plant the vines. Then, we had to wait three years to allow the vines to mature to plant the grapes conducive for making wine. We lost six years right there,” he says. After upgrading the facility in 2012, the winery decided to wait to see if they could produce high-quality wines year after year, eventually releasing several vintages at once.

“What’s happening right now in China is that we are starting to produce top-level stuff. But the wineries are producing them in small quantities and they aren’t developing their retail market—so nobody knows where or how to buy them,” Wang suggests. Boyce says that many winery owners rely on their own business connections to sell their wines, rather than a professional distributor that would land them in the nation’s hotels and restaurants.

Li notes that branding and marketing are just two of DFC’s many challenges moving forward.Although the wine industry has been heralded by domestic media as“developing China’s countryside,”Li says that it is more complicated than that. “No other wine producing region in the world is like Huailai county and has a metropolis of 23 million people just at its doorstep,”Li says, referring to his winery’s proximity to Beijing.

Many domestic wines are priced higher than international brands due to production costs

Denise Consentino attends an international wine show to promote Chateau Nine Peaks

“While we can utilize this to develop wine tourism, it means that nobody wants to stay in Huailai county to work [in agriculture],” says Li. “Finding laborers is extremely difficult and some of them end up being not even Hebei locals.”

As for Silver Heights, in spite of its national and international ambitions,some 50 percent of the family winery’s business is still based in Ningxia. These days, Gao’s sister is in charge of sales and public relations,leaving Gao to focus on the perfection of the product. “Vine growing is something almost spiritual between nature and humans,” Gao says.“Creating a good wine is like making an artistic masterpiece. It will take us a bit of time yet.”

Want to develop your palate for high-end Chinese wines, but not sure where to start? TWoC has listed some representative picks from different regions of China.

SHANDONG PROVINCE

Chateau Nine Peaks: Pinkker Rosé(126 RMB)

Cellar Master Denise Consentino says that she is always trying to improve Chateau Nine Peaks’grape quality, but “working with Mother Nature can be challenging.”Produced at more than 350,000 bottles a year, the Pinkker is a new selection from the winery, described as a zesty and light wine with a bright salmon color.

XINJIANG UYGHUR AUTONOMOUS REGION

Tiansai Vineyard: Skyline of Gobi Chardonnay Selection (208 RMB)

Wang Shenghan, the face of the Lady Penguin wine platform, believes that the white wines coming out of Tiansai Vineyard are positioned to take off. Founded by former judge Chen Lizhong, Tiansai has grown beyond a passion project and expanded by getting itself onto the wine lists of five-star hotels and restaurant chains like Element Fresh.

NINGXIA HUI AUTONOMOUS REGION

Grace Vineyard: Tasya’s Reserve Cabernet Franc (257 RMB)

Although originally founded in Shanxi, Grace Vineyard has since expanded to a second location in Ningxia’s famed Helan Mountains.Its Tasya’s Reserve Cabernet Franc won the Gold Medal at the Decanter World Wine Awards in 2019. TWoC’s sources, though, also suggest trying out wines from other Ningxia vineyards, such as Xige Estate, Chateau Pushang, Legacy Peak Estate, and Silver Heights.

HEBEI PROVINCE

Domaine Franco-Chinois: Reserve Marselan 2011 (1,450 RMB)

Food and beverage entrepreneur Isabella Ko believes that the Marselan (a cross between Cabernet Sauvignon and Grenache)may become China’s signature grape. Her wine venue, The Merchants, is currently one of the exclusive retail platforms for the DFC brand and its slightly less premium sister company in Hualai county, Shibaipian (named after the ancient poem “The Eight Immortals in the Wine Cup”). - E.C.All prices are per bottle at the time of writing.

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