40 responses on “Wine racism?”

1. I agree:

   “”China just cannot make a world-class Cabernet because it has no ‘wine tradition’ or ‘wine culture’. China can buy our bonds and Bordeaux, it can produce 99% of the world’s toys and shoes but when it comes to a precious product like fine wine, imbued with heritage and prestige, well it’s just impossible.”"

   then good reference back to : Judgment of Paris

   also,
   China is producing more grape than France but it is not for wine making. China is one of the leader for recent development of leading vineyards is just after Spain, France, Italy and Turkey (but before USA and Iran)…source OIV 2010

   A recent studies by wineintelligence shows that Chinese are strongly embracing western culture more and more and that wine becomes part of that culture.

   Whether it is better than hundreds of other wines, only the palate of the tasters at that specific time, that specific day can say. But of course, it is easy to be spectical don’t you think?

   Did you try it? If not, let’s try it together.

2. Dear Wojciech,
   I think you are absolutely right, and thus you are able to grasp 20% of the truth.

   I was also shocked at the results first, but nevertheless I am able to cope with the idea of Chinese people making outstanding wine. My (and prebably several others’) doubts lie elsewhere.

   I just simply do not think it is probable. This is not prejudice, this is a well-founded, highly rational expectation. Call it a maximum-likelihood estimation, or a stereotype, if you wish. (It is very different from prejudice, as it stems from actual experience.)

   First, some Decanter World Wine Award wines managed to disappoint seriously lately:
   http://alkoholista.blog.hu/2011/08/31/flugos_futam_2

   Cimarosa CS 2010 was found severly lacking in a few departments, and scored at around 4 points (ca. 80 points) on average, worse than our tried Chilean first picks, such as the Luis Felipe Edwards CS reserva. The blog WineAnorak also quotes a blind tasting disappointment with the Chinese wine, fairly similar to our experience.

   It looks highly probable the Decanter panel has been at least mislead on these occasions. (I also recognize that multiple bottlings may be different in mass production, thus there might be a legitimate bottle variance to our disadvantage.)

   It is also not unfair to mention that China is not only lacking a track record whatsoever in producing fine wine, but also a long track record in counterfeiting all kinds of registered trademark quality products. (Anyway, how comes that the much longer tradition of Japanese winemaking has yet failed to make it to the pages of Decanter?)

   I think it is absolutely fair to expect a potential disappointment when buying & tasting this particular DWWA winner. Of course, I prefer fair play, so I would rather taste it for myself than downplay its importance. After all, it might be good – but based on my experience it is just highly unlikely.
   Both for winning the DWWA, and both for being Chinese.

3. @Guillaume: I didn’t try this wine, also because there were only a few bottles and now even the UK MWs can’t try it… Apparently the production is tiny (15K) and it all stays in China.

4. András, thanks for your thorough comment. I believe you could be 100% right. However it’s not exactly the point I was making. The sadly interesting thing is how wine people reacted to the news without doing the reasoning you did. Apparently it was not a matter of the DWWA’s credentials (which I think you are underestimating) but the fact the wine was Chinese. Let’s face it, nobody objected to the several medals won by Brazilian wines during the same blind tastings, although Brazil hardly has a long tradition of excellence. I think a mixture of implicit racism and of implicit anxiety towards the economic and political expansion of China played a role.
   Regarding this particular Jia Bei Lan wine, I haven’t tasted it, but I think you’re being too harsh. It went through a rigorous blind tasting and so chances are high that’s it’s actually pretty good. Moreover, anybody with some knowledge of the Chinese wine industry seems to be speaking very highly of the winemaker, Li Demei. So I’d be leaning towards positive feelings about this wine.

5. Great post. I’ve been following the wine scene here in China for seven years and there is plenty of condescension and paternalism, what might even be called “Cabernet colonialism”, when it comes to foreign reaction to the scene.

   I also just returned from Ningxia yesterday, where the wine in question — Jia Bei Lan — is made, and had a chance to try the 2009, 2008, 2006 and 2005 vintages. I have tasted these wines more than a half-dozen times during the past two years and again found them far above average for Chinese wine, with a complexity and personality that is rare here. I say rare because Ningxia has a track record for decent wine. The same area includes a Pernod Ricard-invested operation called Helan Mountain that makes clean easy-to-drink wine (I believe production will be ~1 million bottles this year) and the much smaller Silver Heights that makes pleasant Bordeaux style blends to rival Jia Bei Lan, among others.

   Cheers, Boyce

6. Great thanks for your informed comment. It’s good to have a first hand opinion from someone who has actually been there and tasted the wine.

7. Hmm, not sure you should invoke racism. The comment I made was expressing surprise, not because the wine is chinese (I am open minded and would be v happy to see great wine wherever it comes from) but because three respected palates (people I know) tasted the wine and considered it poor. I would love to taste it myself.

   Yes, some people have a bias against wines from some countries, but I don’t think this is what was happening here.

8. no offence intended Jamie: I was definitely wasn’t referring to you re: racism because your post discussed the wine in detail and on a purely oenological level.
   But as you say some people have a bias against countries they don’t know. And my point was that the bias happens here because China is what it is, politically, culturally and racially.

9. A “bias against countries” isn’t necessarily racism. Perhaps chauvinism would be a better term? I don’t think the French were racist against Americans in 1976. Merely stunned that their hegemony was being challenged by a bunch of upstarts. The Chinese are the latest. Good for them.

   I want better wine. I don’t care where it comes from.

10. Thanks for the stimulating discussion Wojciech et al!

11. Dear gentlemen (no lady here, I believed),

    I found it’s not surprising that one Chinese wine out of millions hits the jackpot. Why not and why the doubt, etc.? As Debra M. posted my saying to her..”what the fuss about it ?” Our GranMonte wines won 2 silvers from the same competition this year. No one complained about that. Actually, It was me who wrote to Decanter complaining that the original article writen by a wine expert with Chinese name mentioned in the article on that Chinese wine winning gold medal and class-winner (?) trophy at the bottom with less than half a line that we won one silver. So, they changed that to two silvers after I posted my mail on their web. I remember that very well.

    Actually, my point here is that it’s very natural that the focus of attention is now on Chinese wines. China market for wines is hugh and no one can denial that. So, the news, the writing by wine writers/critics/experts, etc., on Chinese wine winning can be overblown. This is very disheartening to winemakers/producers of other new wine countries like us here in Thailand. Is this because we are small wine producing country with no track record ? But why not look at the job well done ..why look at history only ?

    Here in Thailand there are several wineries that sent wines to competitions around the world every recent year and received many credible awards from that. Again, let me repeat, our GranMonte wines won 2 silvers, one bronze and one commended from DWWA this year. That besides various awards received this year; silver from Syrah du Monde, 2 bronze and 4 commended from IWC, bronze from IWSC, 3 class-winner trophies and 4 silvers + 3 bronze from local FBAT international wine challenge and just last 2 weeks ago 2 golds, 4 silvers and 3 seals from AWC Vienna. These are what we got this year so far. And what about last two years ? 20 in total from 2009 and 30 (24 awards from international competitions and 6 from local) in 2010.

    What we got out of all this effort & expense ? Satisfaction. We are satisfied that we can proof to ourselves we can make wines which can look up to the others in international stage. We believed in wine competitions with many wine experts are the judges. That to us representing voice or opinion of the mass. But we don’t expect the gold or silver, etc., will help us to sell more. With our annual production of between 70-100k bottles we are not worry about that. We like to speak about our wines with confident. The awards we received give us that. So, we believe and trust and accept the judgment of all competitions we sent our wines to.

    For those of you who may have doubt on why or how come we received these many awards ? Here are some parts of our profile; our vineyard is 13 years old. We made wines from our own vineyard grapes by our winemaker daughter, Nikki (Visootha) Lohitnavy, who is barely 25 yrs old – graduated 3 years ago with oenology degree from University of Adelaide (old Roseworthy) with honours in viticulture. She used to work when was student at Brown Brothers and Wolfbrass (received scholarship award from Excellence in Wine Making) in Australia and been to work the vintages at Ch.Angelus & La Flour de Bouard in France, Klein Konstantia and others in South Africa in the last 2 years and at Quinta de Roriz in Douro Valley, Portugal, last year and this year. She is now back at QDR doing her little consulting job at the current harvest.

    Hubert de Bouard of Ch.Angelus is our family friend and Nikki’s mentor. In the past 2 years we had our wines to show at Ch.Angelus’ En Primeur in April. Hubert or his son, Mathieu, came to our harvest in Feb in last 3 years tasting our just harvesting grapes or wines of previous vintages. We never had Hubert’s wines or any other foreign wines in our winery or wines. Only some bottles in my wine collection cellar.

    This is really my wish to tell you all that we as late comers have to learn from the others how to make good wine. But not by cheating ! You have to give credit to people who work all year round from vineyard to winery to get finish product of love or passion into bottle. It’s very easy to comment or run down any wines, especially wine with no wellknown name or country. Why don’t just let it go ?

    BTW, our vineyard and winery is very open and easy to access. It’s just 160kms northeast of Bangkok. All are welcome to visit or inspect. You also can visit us via http://www.granmonte.com (the web needs updating) or http://www.facebook.com/granmonte.

    Regards,

    Visooth LOHITNAVY
    CEO & Managing Director,
    GranMonte Vineyard & Winery
    Khao Yai Wine Region, Thailand

12. @Erik: you might be right about chauvinism, although I think there is a difference between anti-American chauvinism and anti-Asian. Whether you like it or not, subconsciously there is always a racial dimension when saying China, Vietnam, India or Zimbabwe “have no wine culture”. Besides the situation is very different today than in the 1970s when the Judgment of Paris took place. French wine chauvinism at that time did have a historical justification. With the globalisation of the wine world today, and Chinese wine being actually vinified by French, Spanish and US consultants, this negative bias is much more difficult to defend.

13. @ Visooth Lohitnavy: Thank you for your comment and for shedding light on this interesting winery project in Thailand.

14. Sorry, there is a lady here.

    Debra, your posting just poped out of the blue above mine.

    Cheers,

    Visooth

15. Wojciech, all valid points. South Africa is producing some pretty good wine at times.

    And, even the French are getting with modernity.

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/click_online/9602402.stm

    Betcha the Chinese run with this too, if they haven’t already. They just launched something two days ago.

16. I only drink cheap wine so have nothing to say about wine evaluation. But this article is fairly interesting! And I believe the point of the article is not about the standards of wine competition.

    As a tea lover, I believe when you are crazy enough about something (wine, tea or whatever) to care for the taste and only the taste, labels (whether championship or producing region) just don’t mean anything to you. One of my favorite shiboridashi (name of Japanese teapot) is made by a Czech artist. One of the best Taiwan oolong (the plant is from Taiwan) was grown and made in New Zealand. I don’t think it’s unbelievable is good tea or good wine is made in any non-traditional region.

    Besides, China does have a rich wine culture (including “real” wine and other spirits) of very long history (since about 100 B.C. for the “real” wine from grapes). Currently there aren’t many Chinese into western style wine yet and wine seems a new industry in China. But after all, Chinese wine is nothing new or bazaar

17. Excellent article Wojciech, congratulations! I think that what you say is very interesting and very useful to stimulate a wine discussion

18. @Franco: Grazie!
    @Gingkoseto: You raise two very interesting points. Why are tea lovers more open-minded and less prone to stereotype than wine lovers? Tea drinking is more relaxed and personal, while there are more complex issues embedded into wine drinking such as economic power, machismo, “lifestyle” etc.
    I totally second your comments on historical Chinese wine culture. But it’s typical for racism and other patterns of exclusion to totally disregard the actual merits of those that are discriminated against. It doesn’t matter if China actually has a wine culture because in the dominant view, it just doesn’t.

19. honestly I think bringing up “racism” is very arbitrary here. Even if there has been some struggle between markets, this has nothing to do with “racism” –a term that is very trendy but very scarcely used relevantly.
    Even if there was actually prejudice about a product (in case there has been), this has nothing to do with “racism”, “colonialism”, or “racial discrimination”.

    the “discrimination/racism” model of interpretation is pretty much an ideological stereotype. Just like the “colonialism” thing, but here I guess we would have to get deeper into history, historiography and geopolitics, which is very very far from the topic.

20. I respect your view Flo. I put a question mark after “racism” in my original post, because it’s a controversial issue. One curious thing: while you, Jamie Goode and a few others seem positive there’s no question of racism here, several readers from China and elsewhere in Asia agreed with my points. It’s a very typical situation of discrimination that discriminators sustain there’s no discrimination. (Speaking generally, not of the Chinese wine story).
    However I can’t agree with you on one point. Cultural colonialism is very widespread in the wine world. Almost all countries have been colonised by the French wine culture. It’s enough to look at my recent post on Montalcino to see that even in a hightly developed country with a millennial wine history, many people still think the best way towards quality is adding Merlot (nicknamed an “improving variety”) and ageing in French barriques.

21. “It’s a very typical situation of discrimination that discriminators sustain there’s no discrimination”
    >> the commentators who you seem to think agree with the “racist” interpretation (in fact they seem to agree with the idea that there is a bias, not “racism”) are not discriminated, and those who say that “racism” is an irrelevant concept here are not perpetrators of discrimination… unless you can prove with facts that I, for instance, am performing any oppression or violence on a person you would consider of a “race” different who mine …

    when you talk about cultural “colonialism” in the wine world, I think in fact you are talking about influence (including economical) and the status of a referent. Colonialism, politically and economically speaking, is a specific concept.

    wine has historically not been an instrument of colonisation for France (except in algeria, a country that has precisely not developped a wine culture since the european presence disapeared) : it has been a product that has spread, was implanted, found new markets, triggered imitation of techniques, inventions and new types of wines.
    Saying that “Almost all countries have been colonised by the French wine culture” is somehaow like saying that “almost all countries have been colonized with the cuneiform sumerian writing” and suggesting that we all are victims because we were influenced by Mesopotamian cultural aspects.
    Influence (good or bad) and colonialism are totally different concepts.

    in a sense, this thing about “racism”/”colonialism” reminds me of what is happening with feminism (and I give you this example precisely because I am a woman): some women tend to “extend” the power of the word “machism” so much that they automatically think of themselves as “victims by definition”. This also applies to gays — any group that has been “overdefined” as “victim by essence” in fact (which also fabricates an “oppressor by essence”). Nowadays the number of victims by ideological proxy is prodigious, and some people really end up thinking they are opressed by nature because they are gay/female/black/you name it.
    You know of the concept of “objective ennemy” invented by a certain Lenin ? we have a use of some words that fabricates “objective victims” as well as “objective oppressors”.
    Mind you, this “fabrication of victims” is not what you are doing at all here, I am just trying to say why words have their importance… and why I am sort of doing some contestation.

    sorry for leading so much away from your topic…
    although we would not use the same words and concepts we would pretty much agree on the facts about the markets.

22. @ flo,

    True, wine is simply a product, but Western publications such as Decanter and entities such WSET, IMW and CAFA are spreading alongside it, including in China, and they bring cultural influence–a “Western” approach–to bear.

    Take this post. It did not originate because China makes wine. It originated because a British magazine gave a Chinese wine an award. And that caused some “vitriolic discussion” on Jamie Goode’s blog.

    @ W. Bońkowski

    As I noted, I live in China and have been casually involved with the wine scene for ~seven years. Your comments hit home as I’ve seen what you refer to as an “undercurrent of negative bias” hundreds of times.

    One additional comment: While I often feel paternalism is at play here, there are times when I think something else is going on: denial. After all, given China’s dominant export record, the thought of this nation making good wine, and eventually in large quantities, must be frightening for many people. It is far more soothing to simply believe it isn’t true.

    Cheers, Boyce

23. @Flo: I don’t think we’re away from the topic. On the contrary, this is a very relevant discussion.
    You make some important points. Perhaps I’ve overdone the “racist” element, and it’s better to speak of cultural stereotype in the case of Chinese wine. As I made clear in my original text, I wasn’t talking about explicit racism in anyone’s comments. But negative stereotypes have mechanisms and motivations – most often subconscious – and it’s worth reflecting if that subconscious part is not tainted with racism in this and other cases.
    I would also be cautious in using constructs such as “fabrication of victims”. I’m with you, there can be some exaggerations and excesses, but on the other hand, just to refer to the examples you cited, women are being discriminated against throughout the world including “developed” countries (e.g. they earn less than men for doing the same work, and are underrepresented in business or politics); homosexuals are being physically aggressed e.g. here in Poland, and murdered e.g. in Russia. These are hard facts, so talking of “overdefinition” might sound a little complacent?
    Regarding wine colonialism, I think again you are being ingenuous when you see none. Influence is one thing, but influence suggests a certain freedom of the two parts concerned. Whenever relationships of power, domination and oppression come into play, we’re going beyond influence. French Huguenots colonised (quite literally) South Africa and planted vineyards with grape varieties imported from Bordeaux. The Napoleonic authorities in the Kingdom of Italy uprooted local varieties and replanted them with French grapes on a large scale. Bordeaux merchants turned to Rioja during phylloxera and took over the local industry to make the wines taste similar to Bordeaux, effectively wiping out any existing tradition. The spread of French wine culture throughout the world was much more than “influence”. It was an element of power – political, economical and cultural. Today, the techniques are subtler, but when “Wine Spectator” establishes a bureau in Tuscany and awards $-generating scores to those wines that taste most “Americanised”, when Michel Bettane presents a seminar at Vinexpo on Italian wines selecting only 100% barrique examples, surely we’re talking about more than “influence”?

24. J. Boyce & Wojciech
    good points made and very true, but yes, all this is economic influence. It could also be viewed as delocalisation, although not in every case, and of course, be it “good” or “bad”, it has led to implanting standards that are not necessarily relevant today.
    When I say “influence”, I say it in the economic & geostrategic sense, which is strong, so I do think even if you prefer to use a different word we are in fact saying the same thing here. Influence of a zone on another one is cultural, financial, economic, influence is representative of a power. but not necessarily of oppression (in fact, the more real power, the less oppression).

    As for China, I think maintaining western standards is very ambiguous (and quite interesting to watch) : it is very likely the reflect that today the western world in only starting to understand that the richness has strongly (not totally but really strongly) switched to… China. Of course the chinese people are not indivisually all rich, but the chinese state is in possession of monetary reserves and of gold that hardly any economic western zone can claim. Just the way western states are not realizing this, western operators (or even operators not from the west) in many sectors may have a hard time switching standards. What used to be emergent segments in wine have become maturing full markets, but the owners of the previous mature (and leader) markets are still thinking in terms of “emergents markets (them) vs referent markets (us)”. the center of gravity of the world has decided to move, and I guess the wine markets are on the train. Would you say this view is correct ?

    Wojciech,
    I find very interesting your remark that “influence suggests a certain freedom of the two parts concerned” : I think there is no such thing as freedom in economy and finance. Not to say that economy & finance are expression of oppression, but in economy very few are the ones who decide or trigger events, and they are not fully aware of what is triggered, and the rest follow the trends that come up, doing their best to play their part and optimize what they have to optimize.
    And the few ones who decide are not from one side (except in very particular situations, such as a country totally destroyed by war for instance, but even in case there has been a war, utter destruction is very scarce in history).

    freedom and economy are, imho, very unrelated. how can I explain my view ? Mountains and oceans appeared not because the mountain was free to sit near an ocean (or far away), but because at some point some complex forces created a logic. I think it works a bit like that in the co-existence of civilizations & economies (although the metaphor has its limits because in human universes individual decisions are made and combine).

    I agree with what you say on fabrication of victims : facts wil always be facts.

25. I’m not an expert on economy, and as such would sympathise with your comparison to tectonic forces. Wine, however, is a little more simple and localised. And it is also institutionalised. What grape varieties you can plant here or there is decided by a small agency such as INAO in France, or the Consorzio del Vino Brunello di Montalcino. What wines are being marketed around the world as expensive, prestigious and sexy is being decided by a few magazine editors. So there is more room for direct politics and leverage of economic power here.
    Regarding “oppression”, it’s a controversial term, although one that I would compare to “racism” and “discrimination”. Just as with discrimination, the only definition of oppression is that created by the oppressed. If you feel oppressed, than to an extent there is oppression.
    I perfectly agree with your comments on China and the “emerging market” syndrome. Emerging market, just as “developing countries”, is actually pretty much a post-colonial term. It suggests a hierarchical relationship: seller above, market below. The reality is probably a bit more complex than that, although of course China is not a wine market comparable to the UK or US.

26. yes, right, oppression is very aspectual. its signification is determined not only by a factual reality, it is not merely a descriptive word, but also by the locutor’s point of view. Is the feeling a relevant criterion ? I am not sure. In a very political context, if you persuade a population through a bit of propaganda that it is oppressed, then it will automatically feel oppressed. The french revolutionaries used the concept to take the power ; US administration makes great use of it to sustain chaos policy. very convenient concept, probably one of the greatest political tools ever.

    In other cases, cases of what can be named soft oppression, people won’t feel oppressed at all, although strong coercition may be at work. In other cases again, oppression can be so strong that people will be deprived of the notions that may lead them to evaluate the coercition -even a physically violent one.

    take “brave new world” for instance (i am not very original taking that exemple) : are they oppressed ? if you ask Lenina Crowne, the question does not even make sense. if you ask Bernard Marx, he will likely say yes, but not for the right reasons : he would love the system would he just look like the alpha plus that he was decanted. If you ask Helmholtz Watson, he might say yes there is oppression, but it is objectively rather a good one and no one is suffering so he can make do with it (he will finally prefer the island but if he had to stay he would perfectly live with it, his rebellion is very cosmetic). Then if you ask Mustapha Menier, the answer is yes the oppression is on the ultimate stage, but if you put freedom in the system everyone will be deeply unable to live, plus this supersoft violence has even managed to suppress violence… so it is absolutely Good.

    oppression, like many terms that relate to the concept, is a very recent semantic invention (or at least a very recent propagation). In some cultures it does not even really exist, or when it does it is an imported item (like a “piece rapportée”). I find it sort of vertiginous.

    but back to wine ! (in fact i wander so much you are going to wonder if I have not had one too many )

27. Pingback: The Takeaway From China's Award Winning Wines. Yup, You Read That Right. : China Law Blog : China Law for Business·

28. Wojciech, I’d like to translate your article to russian readers if you dont mind?

29. My pleasure Denis. Please send me a link and please provide a link to the original piece on my blog. Cheers.

30. Dzekue bardzo!

    http://daily-winegraph.livejournal.com/668783.html

31. http://daily-winegraph.livejournal.com/668583.html

    Sorry, copy-paste wrong link.

32. An update:

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-15452362

    A familiar pattern.

33. Hello Wojciech,

    I summed up my experiences with Jia Bei Lan here in this post:

    http://blog.polishwineguide.com/2011/09/29/he-lan-qing-xue-jia-bei-lan-cabernet-wine-world-racism/

    Cheers, Boyce

34. Thank you Jim. Very good article. I’m happy you presented a broader context to the Jia Bie Lan wine. And I 100% second your comments about “disdain”. Implicit and sub-conscious perhaps but that to me was the essence of many comments on the internet about the Chinese wine award.

35. “few people seem ready to admit that the Chinese wine won the Trophy on its own merits because”

    Source? Who? How few>

    “China has no history of producing high-quality wine”

    True. They do not. California? South Africa? New Zealand?

    “few if any Chinese wines have demonstrated to reach so high a level of quality, and it’s implied that
    the wine was likely made with imported fruit”

    Where is this implied?

    “and it’s a curious coincidence the award would happen at a time when Decanter is strongly increasing its business in China”

    Conspiracy theory? Evidence?

    “in a broader sense, when China is becoming a major market for Western wine while at the same time it has so far failed to achieve recognition for its own wine.”

    Wine is a business too. So?

36. Erik, I don’t want to get into contradictions here, but here are a few random quotes from the internet:
    “Wow what BS. I hope everyone realizes that the majority (if any) of the wine in this bottle comes from bulk wine NOT from China. China has virtually no appellation system, at least one that the wine world can trust is governed. They buy bulk from around the world and label it as China all the time. Ridiculous.”
    “I’m not surprised the Chinese are making wine, they seem to make everything else, I just hope it lasts longer than the other crap they churn out”
    “I doubt Chinese agricultural practices would pass even the basic western test. The wine probably glows in the dark.”
    “DON’T TRUST CHINA!!! CHINA IS FAKE!!! They switched the wine!”
    “Maybe the wine have ingredients that controls the mind of the judges of the said competition, that’s why it won…”
    This is just from a 2-minute Google search. Browsing the various news websites I’m confident such comments make up around 40% of the discussion.

    China has no history of producing high-quality wine, but history doesn’t make quality wine. Intelligent effort does.
    Regarding the conspiracy theory about Decanter awarding a Trophy just for business reasons, this was explicitly mentioned in the Wine Anorak post discussion, which has now sadly been deleted. But again, as with the comments above, I’m not making it up. It’s one of the several rationales that people seem ready to employ to avoid acknowledging that China can make very good wine.

37. In addition to my comment of 1 Oct 11, FYI., our GranMonte wines again received awards from Wine Style Asia Award 2011 in Singapore announced at the gala dinner and awards presentation on 26 Oct. I also received “Southeast Asia Wine Pioneer” recognition award for my service to Thai wine industry. I was president of Thai Wine Association since beginning in 2004 until stepping down early this year.

    Our wines and awards;

    “Asoke” Cabernet Sauvignon/Syrah 2009: Gold medal (this wine also received gold medal from AWC Vienna 2011)

    “Sakuna” Rose Syrah 2011: Silver medal

    “The Orient” Syrah Reserve 2009: Bronze medal

    “Heritage” Syrah/Viognier 2010: Bronze medal

    I and my winemaker daughter, Nikki, will travel to attend Hong Kong wine fair this 3 Nov (if we can wade through floods to the Bangkok airport !) and will receive some award from HKIWSC 2011 there. Will let you all here know what ?

    For those who wants to see the real things at our GranMonte Vineyard & Winery, You are very welcome ! We will begin our 2012 vintage harvest early Feb and will hold annual harvest festival on 1st weekend.

    Cheers !

38. And, just a bit more.

    http://www.reuters.com/video/2011/11/16/chinas-wine-industry-ripens-as-local-thi?videoId=225231252&videoChannel=300

39. Pingback: Is the Chinese wine market an illusion? | In pursuit of food·

40. Pingback: Is the Chinese wine market an illusion? | Amateur Wine·

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