Where To Buy Chinese Wine [BEST]
With early records mentioning it over 2000 years ago, Shaoxing Wine is one of the oldest forms of rice wine in China. The production process involves fermenting rice, water, and a small amount of wheat (note that it does contain wheat, so it is not gluten-free. If you are gluten-intolerant, check out the substitutions section towards the end of this post). Clear rather than cloudy, it has a dark amber color, with a mildly sweet, fragrant aroma.
where to buy chinese wine
Aged Shaoxing wine can be consumed as a beverage, usually warmed beforehand. For cooking, however, we use lower grade Shaoxing wine with added salt to 1) avoid an alcohol tax and 2) allow it to be sold in regular grocery stores.
This amber-colored rice wine differs from clear rice cooking wine, or mǐjiǔ (米酒), in that it has a more complex and deeper taste. Comparing the lighter flavor of rice wine vs. Shaoxing wine is like the difference between using salt or light soy sauce. One is more purely salty, while the other adds a richer flavor.
Again, there are types of high quality Shaoxing wine made for drinking (usually served warm), but in the U.S., salt is added to the wine to avoid alcohol taxes and to permit it to be sold in stores where regular wine/liquor cannot be sold. The flavor of the wine sold in most grocery stores for cooking is therefore briny and not meant for drinking!
Shaoxing wine can be commonly found at any Chinese grocery store, and there are quite a few brands. Most of them come in a red bottle (one brand seems to have created the design and others followed suit).
As for quality and price, the general rule is, the more expensive the wine, the higher quality it is (less briny, more flavor). Use higher quality hua diao Shaoxing wine for dishes like Chinese Drunken Chicken where the taste of the wine is very important to the dish.
The complete history of China and the Bordeaux wine market, plus the truth about Chinese investors buying vineyards in Bordeaux and the current state of affairs between Bordeaux and China.
China, like much of the world, especially in new and emerging markets for Bordeaux wine always started by focusing on buying wines according to the historic 1855 Classification of the Medoc. Why not? While the original intention of the Classification was not intended to give classified status to the 61 chateaux over all the other estates in Bordeaux forever, at close to 120 years of age, that is exactly what happened. Today, the classification continues informing consumers in new markets when they first buying Bordeaux wine about the levels of quality in wine. While there are of course estates inside the classification that perform better than other properties at the high levels of classification, there are also wineries that under perform as well. Still, it is an easy and efficient way to quickly conclude who makes the best wine in Bordeaux today.
Think about it. No other major wine region placed their top estates in 5, simple, easy to understand categories with those results being officially certified by the French Government. All anyone had to understand was that on a scale from 1-5, First Growth was better than a Second Growth, Second Growths topped Third Growths, Third Growths were superior to Fourth Growths and of course, Fourth Growths were above a Fifth Growth. Plus a 5th Growth was still a very good wine and better than the thousands of other unclassified Bordeaux wines. Because of the Classification, it was quite easy for the Chinese market to focus their buying on established Left Bank Bordeaux estates. All they had to know was how to count from 1 to 5!
1982 is a major turning point in Bordeaux for many reasons. Yes, the year was the first great vintage of the modern era, signaling a new generation was about to take over Bordeaux. 1982 also launched the career of Robert M. Parker, the most important wine writer of all time. Michel Rolland also started his consultancy that year as well. In China, Bordeaux was barely a thought. Ex Pats from England and France living in Hong Kong knew about Bordeaux. But in 1982, less than $10,000 of Bordeaux wine was being sold to China. 1982 was also the year that Topsy Trading Company was founded by Thomas Yip. The initial hope was that Thomas Yip and Topsy Trading Company would supply all the top hotels with wine. In those days, 5 star luxury hotels were still far and few between.
The next step in the chain belongs to Jean Michel Cazes, the owner of Chateau Lynch Bages, the famous Fifth Growth estate. Jean Michel Cazes sold over 20,000 cases of Lynch Bages to Cathay Pacific Airlines for their First Class customers. Now, more people from the Chinese market were seeing Bordeaux wine as a true first class, luxury item.
Montrose Wine and Food Company opened offices in Beijing in 1988 for the purposes of importing wine. They were well ahead of the curve. With little demand for Bordeaux in China, it was easy for the Montrose Wine and Food Company to secure allocations of the all the best wines. Bordeaux survives and prospers by continually opening new markets. Japan had been buying Bordeaux for decades. Everyone in Bordeaux was hoping that China, with over 1 billion people would eventually follow suit. Bordeaux, being experienced in playing the long game was patient. The negociants knew it would only be a matter of time. Many of the freshly minted wealthy class in China were already buying new, expensive, high-end watches to help keep track of the time.
Fortuitously for BI Wines, 2008 became a watershed year for the growth of the fine wine market in China. Taxes on wine imported to Hong Kong were reduced from 40% to zero! As you can imagine, with all wines now selling for a massive 40% discount, the now, sizzling, hot, Chinese wine market was off to the races.
The amazing drop in taxes was accomplished by the extremely wealthy, Government official and famous wine collector, Henry Tang. Henry Tang single-handedly managed to spearhead the movement to drop the taxes on imported wine to Hong Kong. The same day taxes were abolished, sales for Bordeaux wine skyrocketed in China. Ironically, that also sparked the largest increase in wine prices the world had ever seen. For example, an in-demand wine that was slowly selling for $100 per bottle, plus the 40% tax blasted up to $300 per bottle, just to keep up with the new demand. But people did not know, or they did not care that prices higher. They were just happy not to be paying taxes to the Chinese government.
The fallout from this expansion changed how wines were being allocated to satisfy the new demand. Previous markets that relied on certain numbers of cases were not able to buy the same amount of wine, and prices for the 2009 vintage, which we consider an extraordinary vintage made it the highest priced vintage in history!
As you can see, all of that initial growth turned out to be a mixed blessing. Yes, more wine was now readily available, but at much higher prices from the negociants. Hoping to buy wine at lower price levels, some industrious Chinese buyers tried to avoid buying wine through the negociant system. They could not understand why they were not able to purchase wine through direct negations with the chateau owners. The Chinese business people did not like, enjoy or understand why these middlemen had to be part of every deal.
The demand for exclusivity was relentless. As we mentioned, it is bad business for a chateau to sell all their wine to one client in a single market. However, it was a brilliant marketing decision to sell their declassified wine to a specific client, allowing them to invent a new brand. From that point forward, the buyer could control the cost and sale of the wine, and the chateaux now had an easy way to sell their excess wine. It was a marriage made in heaven and the birth of a new market.
Buying low and selling high is nothing new. The Chinese were experts at it. Industrious entrepreneurs looked to buy bulk wine. Bulk wine is considered not good enough to sell by the chateau with their name on the bottle. The bulk wine is sold most often to negociants who bottle the wine under their own label, according to the rules in Bordeaux. So if all the grapes were from a specific appellation, for example, Pauillac, the wines would be sold under a brand name as coming from Pauillac. If the wine was the product of various appellations, the wine would be sold as a generic AOC Bordeaux. For these new Chinese marketers, this was a gold mine! They could be the wine that would normally sell for 2 Euros, repackage and label it under their own name and sell it for up to 10 times more money!
Taking this a step further, this explains why so many, extremely wealthy Chinese business people purchase vineyards with beautiful chateaux, but poor terroirs. Several of these new buyers were obtaining land in Entre Deux Mers. The low cost of vineyard land allowed the buyers to reap a windfall by repacking their wine on an exclusive basis and sell it in China! The value to Chinese investors was the rights to state their wine was from Bordeaux, their ability to create a unique brand, and be able to own all the stock and control all the marketing, packaging pricing and distribution. This formula will not create great wine, but it is the perfect product for successful, savvy, Chinese marketeers seeking profit. This formula explains the reticence to buy a top Classified Growth, even if one were to come up for sale. The profit margin would be far too slim, if not risky for most Chinese investors.
The Chinese market was hot in 2009. Everyone wanted to get in, while the getting was good. The uninformed Chinese customers were buying all the best names in Bordeaux, from all the weakest vintages. The quantity of wine being shipped to Bordeaux changed how the entire world market for Bordeaux wine was allocated. The top chateaux cannot make more wine. Their production is finite. So, with the demand from China for a continuing increase in their supply for the best wines, those wines had to come from someplace. That meant that every country was now going to get less wine, and prices were set to rise. 041b061a72