That elusive taste

Chinese are still adapting to the not-so-sweet world of wine

In his guide for the newly emerged middle-class Chinese male,《绅士生活》(New Gentleman), British writer Edward Burman reckons that drinking wine is an essential element in a modern gentleman's life. However, the Chinese, at least some years ago, were disappointing in this department, and Burman tells the horrific story of a wine importer in 1995 who witnessed 12 bottles of pricey Lafite being mixed with Sprite, bombarded with watermelon slices and gulped down by a group of Chinese businessmen while shouting "干杯!" (gānbēi, cheers).

From the Western perspective, such drinking habits are certainly strange. But for many Chinese, the tannic taste of wine is just plain weird. They used to believe wine should be sweet and fruity. All this began with a domestic Chinese wine called "half-juice wine" that mixes fermented grape juice with other fruit juice, water and sugar.

Because of the simple process in making it, it practically dominated the market until 2004, when such products were banned due to tainted production. Before then, almost all wine labels produced half-juice wine, such as Zhangyu (张裕) and Great Wall (长城 Chángchéng).

Tonghua Grape Wine used to be the favorite half-juice wine for the country's leaders. Founded in 1937, Tonghua had its days of glory. Produced from grapes grown at the foot of Changbai Mountain in Jilin province, it was served at state banquets and diplomatic dinners and was promoted nationwide.

At one time it was regarded as "The red wine of the nation". From the founding ceremony to China's 10th anniversary, the sweet Tonghua wine was there every step of the way. Even then US president Richard Nixon and then British prime minister Margaret Thatcher had their share of Tonghua wine when they visited China.

The taste of Tonghua Grape Wine was then regarded as standard for all wine. Half-juice wine is easy to make. To cut costs, many smaller vintners even lowered the percentage of the grape juice and replaced it with more water and sugar. Such unpalatable chaos was finally put to a stop in 2004.

With new regulations and the increased import of foreign wine, the Chinese taste for wine changed vastly over time.

"Beginners prefer relatively sweet wine," says Joe Ma, 33, manager of the Education and Publication Center of Aussino World Wines, a successful wine importer for 12 years.

"But as they gain more knowledge about wine, the general trend is that they will grow fonder of dry wine."

People in northern China also tend to enjoy dry wine because their daily diet is made up of heavy flavors, he says. As a result, people now enjoy wine without mixing.

"It was done when the market wasn't yet mature. The quality of wine was not that good, and people added other stuff to cover the defects in the flavors. But now a person with the slightest wine knowledge will refuse a mixed glass of wine."

Chinese people now consume more than 1.2 billion bottles of wine every year. With the growing number of wine drinkers, the expanding wine market and evolving wine culture, the Chinese taste for wine in the new age is still yet to be decided.

Courtesy of The World of Chinese, www.theworldofchinese.com

The World of Chinese

(China Daily Africa Weekly 01/17/2014 page27)