Adventures on the China Wine Trail by Cynthia Howson & Pierre Ly

Author:Cynthia Howson & Pierre Ly
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: undefined
Publisher: undefined
Published: 2012-02-27T16:00:00+00:00

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“On to the red Bordeaux varietals over ten pounds. And the winner is . . . the 2009 from Helan Qingxue!” This was the announcement that stunned the wine world at the 2011 Decanter World Wine Awards. The winery’s chairman, Rong Jian, was there to collect the award. He got on stage to shake hands and take pictures with wine celebrity Steven Spurrier, the one who had organized the famous 1976 Judgment of Paris, where California wines topped the best Bordeaux and Burgundies at a blind tasting with French judges. Helan Qingxue’s winemaker, Zhang Jing, wasn’t there, but her famous consultant, Li Demei, made the trip and spoke to the camera in English after the ceremony: “It’s a surprise, so, I never think we can win this so high, highest trophy. I’m very excited.”[1] An associate professor of wine tasting and enology at Beijing Agriculture College, Li holds a master’s degree in fruit tree science and an interdisciplinary engineering degree from Bordeaux combining viticulture, enology, and economics. In addition to Helan Qingxue, he consults for several other wineries in Ningxia and Xinjiang. “Demei’s View,” his regular, always insightful column for Decanter China magazine, covers a wide range of topics, from vineyard field reports, commentary on China’s wine market, and wine marketing to natural wine and the prospects for various grape varieties. So, Professor Li is a Chinese wine superhero in many ways, as not just a winemaker but also an influential writer.

Several people we met more recently referred to his March 2017 column, “Marselan: The Future ‘Signature’ of China.” We’d had a soft spot for Marselan ever since that Grace Vineyard barrel tasting during our first week in China. The more we saw, the more those experimental tastings felt like history in the making. With so much Cabernet Sauvignon in China, presumably due to Bordeaux envy in the early days, it’s refreshing to see wineries experimenting. Professor Li’s article drew attention to the fact that several wineries in different parts of China had been experimenting with Marselan with good success.

Have you ever had Marselan? This southern French grape variety, a crossing between Cabernet Sauvignon and Grenache, was invented in a lab, in 1961, by French researcher Paul Truel. It’s sometimes found in red blends from the Languedoc region but is rarely highlighted as the star of any show. So, you won’t just run into it at a shop the way you would with Merlot or Syrah. And yet, there are examples from all around the world. We found one in a little Seattle wine shop, thanks to encouragement from Jim Boyce, the innovative wine blogger behind the Grape Wall of China blog who launched the first World Marselan Day. The inaugural 2018 #worldmarselanday happened on April 27, Paul Truel’s birthday.

This is a pretty big departure from Cabernet Gernischt, a widely planted red grape that Changyu first marketed in 1937.[2] Changyu also has a World Cabernet Gernischt Day (May 25), which seemed to have brand potential because the grape makes good wine and it’s unique to China.

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