NYTimes: ChineseWines....

Two interesting articles on Chinese wines in the NYTimes today:
AsimovTasting
ChinaWinemakers

$201 for a Chinese Cab??? I don't think so!!!

I remember very well the first PRC wine I had maybe 30 yrs ago. Came in a crock btl. Pulled off a cork or stopper & tried to pour. Nothing came out. I looked in the neck and there was this little plastic plug I had to bore thru w/ my corkscrew. It was some kind of 18% rice wine. Dreadful/oxidized stuff. But a neat label that made Mao Tse-tung proud.
Tom

That Chinese wine sounds like Shao Hsing. Commonly used in Chinese cooking. It is sort of the Chinese rice wine equivalent to fino Sherry, which is what's usually recommended as a substitute. I see it mostly in oriental grocery stores, where it's been adulterated with 5% salt so that it doesn't have to meet liquor regulations. But I did find some unsalted stuff at one Chinese supermarket, in a crock as you described. It was fairly pleasant in a Sherry sort of way.

-Paul W.

Two years ago Waitrose supermarkets stocked 2011 Changyu Cabernet Gernischt and it sold almost instantly. Cost £9.99 and it was pretty good.

Jancis selected 2004 Grace Vineyard Chairman's Reserve (Bdx blend) as one of her 21st century wines at her tasting I attended in 2003.

I've also had other less expensive Chinese wines and they were all prefectly acceptable.

I'm glad Chinese demand for wine will be met locally as the Asian demand has pushed up the prices of what I used to regularly buy