China’s wine

Press, 21 January 1982, Page 8

China’s wine

Maurice Hunter’s

GRAPEVINE!

1982 will see the release of the first export wine from the Peoples Republic of China. And. if some of you receive this news with a certain amount of indifference. I am not surprised. I was given a bottle of Chinese wine once. It was sweet and yukky and so heavy with all sorts of introduced flavours (oriental herbs, I guess) that it took me straight back to my childhood days and the smell in my father’s stables when the drivers were oiling the harness to keep it soft and pliable. This new wine will be nothing like that but. to discover the story behind the story, we must go back a little.

It all began with a colossal hangover suffered by the managing director of the Asian subsidiary of Remy Martin.

Francois Henry was stationed in Hong Kong at the time of the death of Chairman Mao. Subsequent to the deposition of the Gang of Four and the opening of Red China to the West, everyone, he said, was trying to find a reason to pay the republic a visit — but there had to be a reason.

Francois had a very good reason. As the local representative of the 257-year-old company, it irked him that

only two countries in the world did not buy the famous Remy Martin cognac. One was Albania and the other Red China. So he made his contacts and set out on a selling trip which was to exceed his expectations. The Chinese. I understand now. are very hospitable people and they are renowned for their courtesy. So. before any business is done, there must be a reception for the guest and custom demands that this take the form of a banquet. At this particular banquet the reception committee comprised a delegation of 10. During the serving of the innumerable courses a local fiery liquor was dispensed, and it was at this stage that Francois learned of another Chinese custom. When the liquor is poured each delegate. and the guest of course, is toasted individually by the raising of the cup and. with a cry of “Kampai!” putting it down the hatch. Loosely translated “Kampai!” is equivalent to “Skol,” “Cheers," “Mud in your eye,” or more specifically “Bottoms up!” Was it imagination, or was there still a look of pain in Francois’ eyes as he related the story? The following day, very much the worse for wear, he ventured to suggest to his

hosts that wine would be a much more suitable drink to accompany their honourable fare. "But." he said, “to make wine it is necessary to have grapes." “We have grapes." they replied, and took him to an area near Tianjin (Tientsin) where he saw the most peculiar vines he had ever seen.

They had been planted by Jesuit missionaries many years before and. in an area where the winter, temperatures dropped to minus 30 degrees C, protection had been necessary. So each winter the vines were painstakingly buried in the ground and covered with straw. Come the spring they were equally painstakingly uncovered and raised to an upright position — or almost upright.

They never recovered from the bending necessary to bury them and consequently the entire vineyard consisted of rows of zig-zags. In the meantime Remy Martin had taken over the (10-year-old winery of Quelltaler in Australia (more about that in a later column). Drawing on the expertise available, the vines were raised on trellises to a sitting position, pruned and tied, and the nurturing towards the first season's commercial production begun. Naturally there was no winery equivalent in Tianjin

but that was no great problem. Remy Martin uplifted all the contents of a small Australian winery and set it up in China.

The first harvest was supervised by a young American oenologist'. Peter Nicholls. who saw it through the fermentation and clarifying stages into bulk storage tanks which he blanketed with nitrogen before returning home.

Late, last year the company sent a’ husband and wife team back to supervise the final stages of processing into bottles. (With true Gallic understanding Francois did not think it fair to send a bachelor for a period of three months!)

The result is a first production of 10.000 dozen of a medium dry white wine, merely a token quantity for

world-wide distribution. The label "Dynasty.” meaning a line of hereditary rulers, is a rather surprising choice from a communist country but, just as long as it produces foreign exchange which is just as much in demand there as it is here, the Chinese will apparently be happy.

Whether the wine proves to be popular enough for the trade to be developed to any large extent is another matter but. in any case, bottles from this first shipment will be collectors’ items.

I forgot to ask Francois whether his next target is Albania. If so. I expect he will be boning up on local customs or he could easily find himself in deeper strife. By the same token he could just as easily add another page to wine-making history.