As many of us know, this wine won a top Decanter Magazine blind tasting award in 2011, the details of which (from a web article) I pasted below my note.
I had been curious to taste the wine ever since it won the worldwide award, but only recently compassed the opportunity by trading a 2001 Chateau Carruades de Lafite to a Chinese business person for it. I opened the Chinese bottle last night, prior to lobster risotto, in a nod to China (the rice part).
Evidence says it is a very good wine since a panel of experts from Decanter magazine said it was. So the fact that I wouldn’t want to drink another bottle of it doesn’t potentially mean anything, except to my wife, who would have possibly tried to get me committed to an insane asylum if I had told her I liked it. She was ready to pour it down the drain, but I said I wanted to evaluate it, which would include discriminating how I felt the next day after drinking at least half a bottle of it.
I feel a little edgy and compromised with a touch of a headache and a hint of nausea, similar to how I felt after drinking more than two glasses of any California red in my memory. This is in stark contrast to how I feel the next day after drinking any quantity of a wine (which doesn’t necessitate a 911 call) from the Bordeaux region at or above the cru bourgeois level. For example, at tastings I have consumed as many as seventy small glasses and felt better the next morning than I did the day before, even when were it not for my fine suit the police could have confiscated me just from observance of my gait between the event and my hotel.
Following the Decanter tasting event there were conspiracy theorists who believed it was possible that the bottle did not emanate from China at all, but was instead a ringer from Bordeaux. These people, as most conspiracy theorists are, were out to lunch. Jia Bei Lan does not taste anything like any wine from Bordeaux. California, a little. I could detect similarities to the 1996 Cinq Cepages, which the Wine Spectator Magazine tasting staff declared worthy of 96 points (as I remember – maybe 94) and placed it atop its 100 best wine list for the year, because of its concomitant value. That one I did pour down the drain because I was irritated that I had been sucked into buying it from a suckling staff to whose general taste I do not ordinarily relate. (As an aside, I also got skewered buying the 1995 Chateau Margaux, which the magazine had anointed with 100 points. I can be excused for that, I suppose, because who would ever think that wine wouldn’t even taste as good as a typical cru bourgeois?
I digress. The Jia Bei Lan tasted like a contradiction of effects which I cannot explain. The wine was jammy; but, and so thus, while not vegetal, it nevertheless tasted like vegetables, and autumn leaves, with more acidity than you would find in a jammy California wine. The nose, which I couldn’t exactly identify, except to say it was forest-like, offered up some pleasantly interesting aromas, maybe reminiscent of walking through a wild blackberry patch; and the silky mouthfeel, expressive of a fine Pinot Noir, was probably the best part. The cork smelled acrid with tobacco. I also tasted tobacco, and then cherry, strawberry, cucumber and grass on the palate. My mind also coughed up the idea of bubblegum and soda pop from some indirect, indistinct association with the flavour. The finish was indeed long, but too much redolent of cherries for my taste.
From the web:
Chinese wine wins top honour at Decanter World Wine Awards
• Thursday 8 September 2011
• by Adam Lechmere
For the first time in the history of the Decanter World Wine Awards a Chinese wine has won at the highest level.
Winery He Lan Qing Xue’s Jia Bei Lan 2009 Cabernet blend has won the Red Bordeaux Varietal Over £10 International Trophy.
The award was given out at the Decanter World Wine Awards presentation dinner at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden last night.
Judges said the wine was ‘supple, graceful and ripe but not flashy’ and praised its ‘excellent length and four-square tannins’.
Only 25 International trophies are awarded at the Decanter World Wine Awards, chosen out of more than 12,000 wines entered. In the final judging category, He Lan Qing Xue was tasted against Regional trophy winners including St Emilion Grand Cru Chateau Boutisse and Catena Zapata’s Appellation Cabernet Franc, and wines from Australia, South Africa, California and other premium regions specialising in Bordeaux blends.
Jia Bei Lan is a blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Cabernet Gernicht – which is believed to be related to Cabernet Franc or Carmenere – is sold only in China at present, retailing for around £13.
It is produced in Ningxia province in Northern China, in quantities of about 20,000 bottles.
In common with other wine-producing regions of China the climate is extreme, with very hot dry summers and bitterly cold winters, the temperature sometimes falling to -25C, meaning the vines have to be buried in order to keep them alive.
Winemaker Li Demei,who has consulted at the winery since 2006, trained in Bordeaux and did an internship at Chateau Palmer.
He Lan Qing Xue also won a Silver for its 2008 Cabernet Sauvignon, while another Chinese winery, Domaine Helan Mountain in Xinjiang Uygur, won Silver for its Classic Chardonnay 2008 and Bronze for its Premium Collection Riesling.
As panel chair Ch’ng Poh Tiong said ‘The Decanter World Wine Awards 2011 was a golden harvest for Middle East, Far East and Asia.
Not only did China pick up medals but Japan, India and Thailand won Silvers and Golds.
‘India and China remain winemaking countries with their doors and windows completely wide open to all sorts of competing ideas – both outside and inside the country.’
Read more at http://www.decanter.com/news/wine-news/ ... eH4LVor.99
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You weren't in Beijing in 2006, were you? 
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