Earlier this week, a news item piqued my ever-insatiable
curiosity. It seems that the Chinese are going for wine in a big
way.
Earlier this week, a news item piqued my ever-insatiable curiosity. It seems that the Chinese are going for wine in a big way. That shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone, I suppose. The prevailing wisdom is that China is going inherit the Earth – or more likely, buy it. Seems like just about everything we buy these days is made there. Without inexpensive goods imported from China, Target would be in big trouble, and Wal-Mart would have to close its doors.
The Chinese economy is going gangbusters. According to Bloomberg, the U.S. trade deficit with China was $15.8 billion for the month of May. That contributes to a total of $72.5 billion for the first five months of the year, a 33-percent increase over the same period last year. And that’s just us. The European Union is running at about half that pace, and countless other countries such as Canada, Australia and the rest of Asia are also upside down with China.
So is it any wonder, with all that money coming in, that the Chinese people are developing a taste for the finer things in life? Even though the world’s most populous country is ruled by communism, this is not the China of Mao jackets, black cloth shoes and green hats bearing little red stars.
One fact that you don’t hear bandied about in discussions of wine and food pairings is how well wine goes with Chinese food. Now, I’m aware that the dishes we have delivered by Bo Ling’s House o’ Stir Fry are not the same as one would encounter in a restaurant in Shanghai or Guangzhou.
The closest I’ve been to China was a week we spent in Hong Kong a few years back. The food we encountered there was fantastic, and owing to the cosmopolitan nature of Hong Kong, just about every cuisine the world has to offer is available there.
My wife and I had a great time going to neighborhood restaurants and trying to figure out the menus. In one, they gave us a menu that had rudimentary English translations. Melanie, as she always does, had questions, and little did she know that every time she pointed at an item and asked about it (asked, mind you, a person who spoke absolutely no English), that item was being placed on our order.
A short time later, dishes of food began arriving at our table. And kept coming. And coming. And coming. They were all wonderful. We laughed so hard we got hungry again. Luckily for us, the food didn’t cost much, but the other patrons are probably still telling the story of the gluttonous Americans who ordered enough food for four families.
In the Midwest, many Chinese restaurants list a wine called Wan Fu on their menus. It’s a semi-dry white Burgundy from France, blended specifically to pair with Chinese food. I have never seen this wine in California, and believe me, I’ve looked. And that’s a shame, because it really does pair well with all kinds of Chinese food, from spicy Schezuan to the milder vegetable dishes. The prevailing wisdom is that a nice Gewürztraminer compliments this cuisine nicely, and that’s true, but many wines do a good job of enhancing and supporting the food. Pinot noir, for example, is great with broccoli beef. But truth be told, one of my favorite beverages to drink with Chinese food is Tsing Tao beer. But this isn’t a beer column, so we won’t go into that.
China imports a lot of the wine consumed by its populace, but its domestic wine industry has a long history and is gaining strength. There is evidence of grape cultivation and wine making dating to the Han Dynasty, around 200 B.C.
In the late 10th century, in the last years of the Oing Dynasty, a gentleman named Zhang Bi-shi established Zhanyu Winery and planted vineyards. Zhang had lived overseas for many years, presumably in Europe, and brought Western grapevine stock and introduced the use of oak barrels for storage and aging. Previously, Chinese winemakers had relied on ceramic urns. Ceramic probably doesn’t impart much flavor to wine and as a wine tasting term, “oaky” has a much more desirable sound than “ceramicky.”
Today there are five major growing regions in the country, Xinjiang, Shandong, Jebei, Liaoning and Henan. Together they account for about 70 percent of China’s grape production. All the usual suspects are grown, including chardonnay, riesling, cabernet sauvignon, cabernet franc and merlot. Some others that I’m not familiar with include cabernet gernischt, carignan and ugniblanc. Total area planted is 392,400 hectares – or 969,637 acres – and they produced about 4.5 million tons of grapes. Doesn’t seem like a lot for a country that large, but those numbers are about quadruple what they were only 15 years ago. So, the taste for the grape is definitely growing in China.
As for the quality of the wine being produced, your guess is as good as mine. I’ve never seen it in stores, and couldn’t find any online. One little fact I did find, though, may speak to the average Chinese person’s taste in wine. Wine is a very “in” beverage there now, and a popular way to enjoy Merlot is to mix it with Coca Cola and plunk in a few ice cubes.
Hmmm. Maybe someone should try sending some Wan Fu over there.
