Northern Neck Uncorked

Chinese Wine

Dragon Wines – The Chinese Wine Industry. People associate China with many things, but few link the country with wine. However, with the world’s fifth largest vineyard area and the seventh largest production level in 2004 (OIV), that may change.

In November 2006, I was invited to lecture at two universities (Agricultural Research Station of Guangdong Province in Guangzhou, and at the China Agriculture University in Beijing) and tour Chinese wine regions. The following is the first part of a review of that visit and of the Chinese wine industry.

China has a long history of wine production, although exactly when the Chinese began to produce wine is a matter of speculation. Chinese literature accounts for the introduction of grapes from modern Uzbekistan during the Han Dynasty (136 to 121 BC) and their planting in Xi’an, the legendary eastern terminus of the Silk Road near China’s Yellow River. In 1980, a 3000-year-old, tightly sealed copper container was unearthed in an ancient tomb from the Shang Dynasty (1554-1045 BC) in China’s Henan Province (south of Beijing). Scholars have determined that it contained grape wine, likely made from one or more of the indigenous, wild varieties.

The modern wine era in China began with the communist takeover in 1949. State-owned wineries were built and expanded, and the blending of grape wine, fruit juices, water, fermented grains, coloring, and flavoring agents became common. As such, the term wine traditionally has a different meaning in Chinese culture than in the west. Jiu, which literally means alcohol, was used on all labels until recently, not allowing for the distinction among alcoholic beverages. Rice-based alcohol is referred to as wine, as are various fruit alcohol concoctions, including white spirits (baijiu). Modern Chinese winemakers now make an effort to specify grape wine by labeling with the term putajiu. This is helping, but the term wine is still widely misunderstood in China.

China’s Four Modernizations Program, launched in 1978, opened the door for the modernization of the country’s wine industry through international involvement. The Chinese government began emphasizing wine to help quench the national thirst for alcoholic beverages. Indeed, the Communist Party decreed that consumption should change from grain liquor to fruit liquor in 1987. The 1990s saw a decline in state-owned wineries, but an increase in foreign investment, modernization, and western technology.

More than 100 wineries have been established since Premier Lu Peng’s exhortation at the National People’s Congress in 1996 that Chinese drinkers must reduce their consumption of grain alcohol, and switch to wine. Since that time, the government has encouraged state-run “wine manufacturing plants” to grow western grape varieties.

With a country as vast as China, it is easy to imagine a wide range of climates and soils suitable to wine production. My first stop was at the Agricultural Research Station of Guangdong Province in Guangzhou, in China’s southern Canton region. This semi-tropical zone does not concentrate on viticulture, but on sericulture, the production of silk.

Over thousands of years, intensive breeding has rendered the silk moth (Bombyx mori) a blind, flightless, egg-laying machine, whose larvae hold the secret of silk production. The Chinese discovered the potential of its ancestor, a wild, mulberry leaf-eating moth unique to China. For 3000 years, China (known in the West as Seres, or Land of Silk) had a monopoly on silk production. While China is no longer the only producer, silk today represents a very important agricultural commodity for China. The Agricultural Research Station of Guangdong Province is the research center concentrating on breeding of the silk worm, and on the important by-products of silk production. These by-products include mulberries, nutritionally-based products, juice and, of course, mulberry wine. I gave several lectures on wine technology, and toured their extensive wine research labs and experimental winery devoted to mulberry wine research.

Dragon Wines – The Chinese Wine Industry (continued). In November 2006, I was invited to lecture at two universities (Agricultural Research Station of Guangdong Province in Guangzhou, and the China Agriculture University in Beijing) and tour Chinese wine regions. The following is a continuation from Enology Notes #125, a review of that visit and the Chinese wine industry.

From Guangzhou, I traveled some 2400 km by train to the Chinese Agricultural University in Beijing. In 2003, the university established the country’s first PhD program in Enology and Viticulture. With extensive support from some of the major wine producers in the country, including Great Wall Winery, this program is thriving. The university has a pilot winery and research facilities that are quite impressive. With four full-time faculty and about 50 graduate students, the program is providing the industry with the technically-trained personnel needed to grow and develop production.

I lectured on aroma and flavor management, and evaluated many of their experimental products. I also lectured to the graduate students in English. English competency is a requirement for the Chinese Agricultural University Enology and Viticulture program.

From Beijing, I visited several wine regions. China has more than 300 wineries. Most of this development has been in the North Central Heartland areas near Beijing, in the eastern maritime region of Shandong, and in the Inner Northern region of the country.

The industry is dominated by six large producers who account for about 55% of the total production. The average capacity of Chinese wineries is approximately 2000 tons, with 70% of the producers under 1000 tons. The more predominant wineries include Changyu, Great Wall, Dynasty, and Dragon Seal, all producing over 10,000 tons.

Wine production in China in 2005 was 434,000 tons, an increase of 14% from 2004. While small compared with other alcoholic beverages, it represents a substantial increase.

Some wineries still use flavor essence, ethyl alcohol, sweetening agents, and water additions to produce wines. This has been the motivation to attempt to establish standards. At a wine conference in Shandong Province, participants discussed the establishment of an AOC-type system.

New standards are evolving, including premium wine and ice wine; the latter, produced in the extremely cold Xinjiang Region, is abundant in stores in most big cities. Regulations are being put into effect to control raw materials, regional identity, variety, and vintage.

Despite some opposition to geographic indicators as a means of wine classification, local branding has become a trend, with the expansion of some estate-branded wines. One winery I visited, Great Wall, is leading the market in estate wines.

Domestic wine producers are starting to change marketing strategies. Changyu Wines has established the first estate wine club in China. They and others are attempting to break out of the traditional, for example by selling entire barrels of wine at a time. The Huadong Winery, established in Shandong Province in 1985, was one of the first wineries to attract attention, being the first Chinese winery with a varietal label, and the first to vintage date.

China reportedly has 26 indigenous vine species and hundreds of grape varieties. These are used to produce mainly low-end wines. Widespread introductions from Russia, including Muscat Hamburg and Rkatsiteli, along with Italian Riesling, make acceptable, if not noteworthy, products.

In Shandong Province, early vineyards were developed from a diverse selection of wine grapes introduced mainly from Europe. Among the most common are Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, and the mysterious Cabernet Gernischt and Welchriesling. Cabernet Gernischt is a red wine grape variety used in China and believed to be of European origin, similar, if not identical, to Cabernet Franc. The name may be a misspelling of the Cabernet Gemischt, once used in Europe. It was imported into China in 1892, and is used both as a varietal wine and a blending component.

Shandong Province is at roughly the same latitude as California. Cool Pacific breezes moderate the temperature, which ranges from about 3C in winter to 26C during the summer. Monsoons come from the South China Sea, although spring is usually dry, and summer and autumn wet. Therefore, fungal growth is a problem, with rainfall averaging about 700 mm (27 inches) between June and August.

Like many regions in the world, China’s initial plantings were on flat land with fertile soil, poor drainage, and poor ventilation. Overcropping is a large problem, impacting quality.

In the Shandong peninsula at Pingdu, the eastern range of the Dazashen Mountains, with its south-, southeast-, and southwest-facing slopes, is being planted. This area is gaining a lot of attention due, in part, to decomposed granite soils overlaying a limestone bed which, for the most part, is low in nutrients and well drained.

China’s parallel systems of market-driven and controlled economy, along with very strong farmer traditions, may limit the pace of change. Traditionally, all grape varieties (for wine and table) were grown in a fan-type trellis system with little canopy management. On the fertile valley floors, this results in dense foliage. High humidity and excessive yield increase the fruit rot potential, which motivates growers to harvest immature fruit.

The vast majority of vines I saw were ungrafted. Grapes are supplied by individual farmers who usually work less than an acre. With the abundance of cheap labor, as expected, all viticultural activities are performed manually.

In Hebei Province, not far from Beijing, vines are trained to a single and double cordon system, and buried in the winter, due to temperatures between -10 and -20C. The soil in this region is very sandy, with a high pH. Rainfall is about 400 mm. Here they use the so-called Dragon system. Vines are trained to single or multiple cordons just above ground level. Each cordon, or dragon body, bears dragon claws (canes) which are trained vertically about 50 cm apart.