I hopped on a Guangzhou bound train for a cool climate wine tasting last week, part of a three-city (Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou) tasting tour organised by the Austrian and German embassies to celebrate the launch of the ‘Cool Climate Wine’ book written by Susie Wu and Michael Thurner. Some 63 wineries from Austria, Germany, Alsace and one from Tokaji were invited to present their wines.China is supposedly a red wine-loving nation, so, apart from just tasting, I wanted to see how mainland Chinese drinkers responded to these mostly white wines from cool climates. The results were interesting.
I started with whites, tasting the Austrian Grüner Veltliner in the company of a local importer. After two glasses, he was already looking for reds and strayed away.
Only about an hour into the tasting the place got noisier, and merrier, and more alcohol was consumed—no one was spitting apart from me. Broadly speaking, there were two types of conversation among guests: price—how much for a container?—and status—how important the guest was (it seemed most were the biggest importer somewhere). Among the producers several carried the bemused look of someone in China for the first time. I asked a few what they thought. All said they were impressed. Perhaps they still had the illusion that ‘if every Chinese person spends one dollar on my product...’.
