For publication February 2011

Medical experts have long debated the health benefits of wine. The results are still inconclusive. But if nothing else, wine forces us to slow our busy lives. We may be able to munch a hamburger on the run, but it is impossible to appreciate takeaway wine.

Wine is meant to be drunk with good company in a relaxed environment. In the process we unwind. For that reason alone one could argue that wine in moderation must be good for us.

This debate leads us to Doctors John and Brigid Forrest, who launched their Forrest winery in the Marlborough region of New Zealand in 1988. Brigid was a medical doctor and John a scientist. They have long advocated the health benefits of wine.

In recent years the doctors have bought vineyards in Marlborough, Otago and the Gimblett Gravels region of Hawkes Bay. All are considered the best terroir for specific types of grape: Otago for pinot noir and pinot gris, Hawkes Bay for Bordeaux blends and Marlborough for riesling.

The Forrest’s doctors’ range label features a cartoon silhouette of Albert Einstein on a bicycle, his coat tails flapping in the breeze. The label also suggests homage to Dr Zeuss and Dr Ernie Loosen, of the great German family of winemakers who craft consistently excellent riesling.

The Forrest 2010 riesling is a lovely wine that reminded me of sherbet lemon sweets I ate as a child: Sweet and hard on the outside with a tang of sherbet inside. The acidity is at the lime end of the citrus spectrum.

It is no surprise that this wine has become the biggest-selling riesling in New Zealand. The fine acidity balances the sweetness. Too much of each and the wine would be unpleasant, but here the marriage is perfect. A feature of the riesling is the low alcohol, at 8.5 per cent, which means people can have an extra glass and not encounter problems with drink-drive laws.

The balance ensures each mouthful is a refreshing experience, John Forrest told a gathering of wine journalists in Hong Kong. “Perfect on a summers day or, as I’ve discovered, the perfect palate cleanser at the end of an evening.” I could not agree more. The 2010 riesling sells for $25 via ASC Fine Wines in Hong Kong.

The Forrest Tatty Bogler range features a scarecrow on the label. A “tatty bogler” is Scottish for scarecrow, a reference to the early Scottish settlers of Otago who used scarecrows to drive away the birds that gorged on ripe grapes.

Dr John Forrest believes Otago produces New Zealand’s best pinot gris because its “unique terroir seems ideally suited to this delicate variety.” The 2009 pinot gris tasted of ripe peaches and pears, with touches of lavendar and rosemary. It retails for $36 in Hong Kong.

Also from Otago was the Tatty Bogler 2008 pinot noir, one of my favorites of the wines tasted. It is blend of Otago grapes from the Waitaki, North Otago and Bannockburn regions. This pinot is rich and sweet with aromas of black cherry, black currants and wild thyme. It tastes of plums and spice. The tannins are ripe and the whole comes together in a seamless marriage. It sells for about $33 in Hong Kong.

Also excellent was the 2007 Cornerstone Bordeaux blend. Only three bottles a person are sold at the vineyard. It is a blend of 56 percent cabernet sauvignon, 23 percent malbec, and the rest merlot. These merge elegantly to produce a generous wine that tastes of cassis, blackberries, ripe black cherries and hints of cinnamon and violets. It drinks well now but would be superb in 15 years.

This wine came equal first in a blind tasting of 146 Bordeaux blends that Winestate magazine organised late last year. The 2005 retails for $55 in Hong Kong but the price for the 2007 is not known.

The last wine tasted was also superb: the 2009 botrytis riesling. It has already won six trophies and a dozen gold medals and will easily collect more. It was like tasting a memory of zesty kumquat liqueur – the drink I made as a child by soaking kumquats in brandy with a dash of raw sugar.

But this dessert wine was so much better and more balanced than my childhood groping. It has such a mouthful of flavors that it would take a range of words to describe the taste: ripe marmalade and peach plus superbly balanced acidity. At about $46 for a half bottle this is a bargain when compared with German dessert wines.

Try these wines and experience the contentment and relaxation of elegant winemaking. Surely evidence of the doctors’ belief in the health benefits of wine.

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A friend gave me a mixed dozen for Chinese new year, mostly from the mid to late 1990s, and we tasted half of them to see how they were faring. It was an education.

We began with a 1997 Carneros Creek pinot noir. This estate was a pinot pioneer in California. The Carneros region is in the south of the Napa valley, about 90 minutes by car north of San Francisco, and in summer it receives cooling breezes from the Pacific Ocean and San Pablo Bay.

The cork was in perfect condition and the wine, while it had peaked some years ago and was declining, was still pleasant. It was dark cherry in color with an appealing bitumen aroma. The tannins had softened and while the wine had almost no length it was still drinkable.

This pinot produced a lot of sediment, which is common for aged reds. Tasted the next day it was dead: oxidized and flat. The rest of the bottle went down the sink. The lesson here is to drink aged wines soon after opening, and remember they are delicate creatures.

The next wine was a 1995 Bourgueil from the Lame Delisle Boucard estate in the Loire region, labeled Cuvee Lucian Lame. This was their entry-level wine and not the grand vin that has won gold medals. The cork crumbled and the wine smelled sour. It should have been consumed a decade earlier. Instead, it followed the pinot down the sink – a pity because these cabernet franc-based wines can be lovely when young.

The key issues here are longevity and storage. Some wines are not meant to be cellared and should be consumed young. This raises the question: If stelvin caps had been available back in 1995 would this wine have been drinkable now? It is impossible to know.

Some vineyards in Australia’s premier cabernet sauvignon region, the Coonawarra, are doing tests: comparing stelvin caps with cork and artificial cork to see which are best for allowing wine to mature. The same vintage has been sealed with all three closures, and left for at least a decade. The tests started in 2005. It will probably be another decade before we will know the results.

Meanwhile, I prefer to buy wines with stelvin screwcaps. These may lack the romance of cork but they ensure the wine is free of cork taint, a problem for the Australian wine industry some years ago.

The third wine tasted was a 1998 dornfelder from the St Antony vineyard in Germany. This was my first encounter with the dornfelder grape so I needed to research it. Wikipedia tells me August Herold created the variety in 1955 at Germany’s grape-breeding institute in Weinsberg.

Wikipedia also says dornfelder has good acidity and the ability to benefit from barrel ageing. It is also easier to grow than spatburgunder, the German version of pinot noir.

The cork for this 1998 dornfelder was in pretty good condition. The wine was almost black and tasted of slightly sour plums. All the tannin had been integrated. While the wine had peaked some years ago, it was still drinking well the next day.

After a break another friend and I opened a 1995 Beringer private reserve chardonnay from Napa in California. Beringer has pedigree. It is the oldest operating wine in Napa, having opened in 1876. The Beringer bothers chose the Napa region because it looked like the terroir they knew from home, Germany’s Rhine region.

The brothers wanted to create tunnels in the hills on their property to store wine. The task of digging the tunnels went to Chinese workers who had returned to the area after helping build the railroad across America. The tunnels took many years to complete but are the perfect place to store wine.

The cork in this chardonnay broke as it came out of the bottle so I had to push the remainder into the wine, meaning I needed a sieve to remove crumbs of cork.

This wine received at least a year in French oak, which may explain why it was so well preserved. It tasted of dried coconut, with aromas of dried apricot. The color was dark gold and it still retained a touch of acid. It was drinking well the next day, and matched well with an over-ripe French brie.

Last month (December) Parker’s Wine Spectator rated the 2009 Beringer private reserve chardonnay number 40 in its list of the top 100 wines for the year. The Beringer pedigree means I will seek their wines in the future.

Sadly I cannot report positive things about the 2001 Nepenthe pinot gris from the Adelaide Hills of South Australia. The cork looked all right but it crumbled like ash from a cigar as soon as the corkscrew entered. The wine tasted of nothing and went down the sink.

The 1994 Pendarves verdelho from the Hunter Valley of Australia also had a dodgy cork. But the wine somehow survived. It was dark gold, tangy yet dry, with a range of subtle flavors. Verdelho was once used to make fortified wines like madeira, and it is rare to find a table wine from this grape.

Pendarves Estate was started in 1986 by Dr Philip Norrie, a winemaker and doctor famous for his research into the relationship between wine and health. He published a booklet called Wine and Health.

So we come full circle, if you have read earlier wine columns about wine and health. What is the lesson here? Old wines can be wonderful but only if they have pedigree and have been stored well. Otherwise they should be drunk young.

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For publication February 2011. Wine column suspended because of CNY.

Some wines cannot help but echo where they are made. This week we discuss some of the best Antipodean reflections of this principle.

The Ata Rangi estate in New Zealand has become associated with great pinot noir. Clive Paton planted his first vines in a stony sheep paddock at the edge of the village of Martinborough at the base of the north island in 1980. He was one of a handful of pinot pioneers. Martinborough’s microclimate is similar to that of Burgundy.

The vineyard’s name comes from the Maori words for dawn sky, often translated as “new beginnings”. This estate has certainly led to recognition for both the vineyard and the grape variety around the world.

In 2010 Ata Rangi pinot noir received the inaugural “grand cru of New Zealand” award. And a year later Decanter magazine declared Ata Rangi the “crowned king of New Zealand pinot noir”. At the same time Robert Parker wrote on his web site: “When I asked winemakers to name New Zealand’s greatest producers, one name kept coming up: Ata Rangi.”

The 2009 pinot noir was available at a Hong Kong tasting organised by Altaya Wines and it was a delight to encounter. The tannins are ripe and subdued. The wine’s cool climate origins are reflected in the aromas of pepper, liquorice, black cherries and spice.

The wine tastes sweet on the palate and the oak blends beautifully. Winemaker Helen Masters writes on the Ata Rangi web site that this pinot spent a year in French oak, a quarter of it new. The amount of new oak suggests it best to cellar this wine for three to four years. It will be even better in a decade. Altaya sells this wine online for 450 HKD. It is a bargain compared with Burgundy of the same price.

If you seek a wine that is less expensive but still full flavoured, try the 2009 or 2010 Crimson pinot noir from the same maker. It sells for about 250 HKD and offers a perfumed nose and tons of fruit, and is drinking well now. I tasted the 2010 at a formal event, the 2008 at a friend’s home, and the 2009 after I bought some on the strength of the two tastings.

It may seem like the company’s second-tier wine but it is better than a lot of first-tier offerings from other vineyards.

Also impressive were a brace of Ata Rangi chardonnays, the 2008 Petrie and the 2008 Craighall. The former was lean and feminine, while the latter was more broad-shouldered and masculine. Both had good length and acid-fruit balance and are drinking beautifully now. These retail for 195 HKD and 290 HKD respectively.

The 2009 editions of both these wines have received impressive reviews, in the 95 to 97 points range, though I have yet to taste them.

Another terroir that speaks elegantly and loudly of place and quality is the Rolf Binder range made from Barossa Valley shiraz in Australia.

The Hanisch is the company’s flagship. It is 100 percent shiraz from the estate and is named after the original owner of the vineyard, “Punch” Hanisch. The wine comes from about four acres of vines and the yield, and therefore production, varies between only 300 and 350 cases a year. The wine sells quickly at home, the reason this wine is not easily available in China.

Rolf Binder provided a taste of the 2001 and 2004 editions. The former was a hot year and it shows in the ripeness of the fruit and the medium length. I preferred the 2004 because of its elegance and beauty – like a thoroughbred racehorse, all muscle and power yet at the same time elegant and surefooted. It had intense aromas of dark fruit with a tang of eucalypt and fruit sweetness, the last probably from the American oak.

The American wine critic Robert Parker described Rolf Binder Wines as “one of the world’s greatest wine estates”. The current available vintage of the Hanisch is the 2006. Parker gave it 97 points, writing that this was Barossa shiraz that “does not get much better”.

Elegant wines like these that speak of place are worth seeking.

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In January 2012 in Hong Kong  Zachys, a US company, auctioned the extraordinary cellar of Joseph Weinstock, a close friend of the famous wine critic Robert Parker. Indeed, Parker tasted bottles from Dr Weinstock’s cellar for the first edition of his book on Bordeaux.

The auction comprised almost 700 lots and featured the best Bordeaux vintages from the past half century. Dr Weinstock purchased wines on release and stored them in a custom-built cellar in his Baltimore home. He marked every bottle with a wax pencil with the date, price and source as well as the ullage level.
Ullage refers to the amount of wine lost though evaporation during storage, and typically a wine loses 1-5 centimetres over several decades. These wines were so well stored, in temperatures averaging 4C, that ullage losses were minimal.
Many of the buyers for the all-day event came from mainland China, and cases worth 150,000 RMB went under the hammer in under half a minute. Auctioneers have been known to speak at 350 words a minute and sell two or three lots a minute. The auctioneers worked as a team, like relay runners. The stream of money and words continued non-stop for almost 10 hours. Buyers spent $7.3 million a the Zachys auction in Hong Kong last November.

My notes from the first hour from 10am show prices were about 10 percent under expected selling prices. By lunch prices were 15-20 percent higher.

These figures provide a snapshot of the afternoon’s highest prices: A magnum of 1976 Romanee Conti Domaine de la Romanee Conti went for 75,000 HKD in perhaps 10 seconds. Its expected selling price was 60,000 HKD. Three 750ml bottles of Corton Charlemagne Cloche-Dury 1989 sold for 70,000 HKD in a few seconds (expected price 46,000 HKD). A dozen half bottles of d’Yquem 1990 went for 24,000 HKD (expected sale 16,000 HKD) in the blink of an eye.

Chateau Lafite has always been popular in China.For the great 1982 vintage, two groups of 24 half-bottles sold for 170,000 HKD per item. Two bottles of the 1953 vintage sold for 26,000 HKD. Several cases of the 1996 vintage sold for an average of 75,000 HKD a case.

Is it possible to find bargains at auctions? Yes, if one knows something about the mindset of people buying wines at auction, and if one is patient and has done lots of research. At this auction most people wanted Bordeaux and Burgundy reds, and these attracted premium prices. I focused on less popular or trendy wines.
For example, I bought 19 bottles of Chateau de Fargues sauternes for $1,029 ($54 a bottle). Some of these wines were made in the mid 1970s and are rare. Over the past few years the average price per bottle of the 1975 Chateau de Fargues sauternes was $149, though it has just peaked and it will be the first I drink.
In his book Sauternes, Stephen Brook wrote “on occasion de Fargues can seem superior to its illustrious one-time stablemate [d’Yquem]”. The fruit is hand harvested, sometimes five or more times, picking individual berries until November.
At an auction in 2010 I bought two and a half cases of classic 2005 and 2006 New Zealand reds that retail for $45 a bottle in that country. Michael Cooper’s Buyer’s Guide to New Zealand Wines rated the wines near the top of a nine-point scale – his equivalent of a high silver medal. Even including freight and buyer’s premium these wines cost me $12 a bottle. I drank them with a smile.
But sometimes at the casino one can lose badly. So it is with wine auctions for those who have not done their research. That same year I bought cases of 20-year-old Hunter Valley semillon and 18-year-old chardonnay. Wines like these with pedigree can last for generations, but only if they have been stored well. This wine had not. Because it was an old wine, the auction house would not refund my money.
The wine went down the sink.
With young wines – vintages from the past five to 10 years – some auction houses will refund your money if the wine is tainted. Not so with older wines. The lesson here: choose younger vintages unless you know the wine has been stored properly.
If you know what you are doing, and can be patient and avoid being caught up in the frenzy, you can find bargains at wine auctions. But it’s a bit like gambling: The house usually wins.
But when the humble gambler wins, it’s time to open a bottle to celebrate.
* “Wine auctions a bit like gambling: The house usually wins” in China Daily, 14 January 2012, page 12. Find link here.

About 90 per cent of wine produced in Alsace, the region in eastern France near the border with Germany, is white. Alsace is France’s only region to grow significant quantities of riesling and gewürztraminer.

Chinese people tend to avoid white wine for a range of reasons, many of them based on ignorance and a reluctance to drink anything beyond Bordeaux. This is sad and frustrating. The law of supply and demand means that if everyone wants Bordeaux, prices will rise.

Alsace is a rectangle of land 185 kilometres long and 40 kilometres wide that has been occupied by France and Germany several times throughout history, especially during the nineteenth century. The changing sovereignty explains the French-Germanic naming system, and many features of Alsace, including the architecture and the wine.

Wines are produced under three key appellations: Alsace and Alsace grand cru for still wines, and Cremant Alsace for sparkling.

People interested in good-quality wine that is not over-priced should consider white wines from Alsace. A tasting in Hong Kong last month (December) demonstrated the value of wines made from pinot gris, riesling and gewürztraminer.

A China-based online wine retailer, YesMyWines, offered wines from three Alsatian providers: Krossfelder, Rolly-Gassmannn, and Martin Schaetzel. The company assembled a group of wine enthusiasts to solicit feedback on the wines, to see if they were worth stocking.

The least said about the four Krossfelder wines the better. They were boring and bland. These 2010 whites were dumb in the sense that I could not detect any aromas, though it might have been a reflection of their relative youth and poor storage or transport. Wine is such a delicate creature that variations in temperature in the three months at sea between France and China can significantly affect flavors.

Stickers on the labels peeled off to reveal other wine names, causing me to worry about the origins of the wine. The corks were cheap and artificial.

All of the six Rolly-Gassmann wines were impressive, especially the 2009 gewürztraminer and the 2009 riesling. The former tasted and smelled of ripe fruit salad and had medium length and good balance. The latter offered zingy acids and lingering lemon taste.

The combination of rich fruit, velvety sweetness and vibrant acidity in Alsace produces seductive wines. Both would be superb with a range of spicy Chinese food. They would also be an ideal match with Thai or Indian curries.

Three of the eight Schaetzel wines were memorable. The 2009 grand cru Kaefferkopf Ammerschwihr gewürztraminer was superb, with a lingering nose of rose petals and spice and a soft balance of acid and fruit.

Also impressive was the 2009 cuvee reserve gewürztraminer with its flavors of passionfruit and lychees. Both had velvety backbones of acid that suggest they would be superb drinking in a decade, though they are very approachable now.

My favorite was the 2008 vendage tardive pinot gris. Vendage tardive is French for late harvest. It produces sweet or dessert wines, because late-picked grapes retain more sugar and character. Its flavors of ripe pears and quince would pair superbly with blue cheese.

The wines are made by Jean Schaetzel, a professor at a wine school in Rouffach in Alsace. The prestigious La Revue du Vin de France recognizes his wines every year. He makes 30 wines, half of them riesling, using organic grape growing techniques.

Alsatian wines represent very good value for money compared with other regions of France, and they work beautifully with most Chinese food. You can find them at YesMyWines.com, China’s biggest online wine store.

* “A region where white tastes right” in China Daily, page 12, 7 January 2012. Find link here.

Rippon vineyard on the edge of Lake Wanaka on New Zealand’s south island must be one of the most photographed wineries in the world. The wines match the beauty of the location.

The late Rolfe Mills returned to his family farm in Wanaka in 1974 and planted rows of experimental vines near the house. Despite mockery from locals, Mills and his family persisted, planting the first commercial vineyard block in 1982 and focusing on pinot noir, riesling, gewurztraminer and sauvignon blanc. Rolfe believed these varieties most suited the site.

His son Nick, who describes himself as an artisan winemaker, returned home in 2002 after four years in Burgundy. A superb range of pinot noirs is the product of extensive training in Burgundy.

The property has been in the Mills family for four generations and is dedicated to biodynamic farming. Wines are made in an old lambing barn. The estate is named after Emma Rippon, an ancestor of Rolfe Mills.

Rippon’s vines are among the oldest in the region. Most were planted between 1985 and 1991, and 80 per cent of the 15-hectare vineyard is planted on its own roots and receives no irrigation.

Frost remains a constant danger in Central Otago but Lake Wanaka acts like “a big hot water bottle,” Mills said. The core temperature of the lake only changes two or three degrees from summer to winter.

I’ve been lucky enough to taste a range of vintages, on site and elsewhere, and believe Rippon wines are unique. They truly reflect the vineyard’s terroir. Rippon’s schist based soils produce, as the texture of the rock suggests, wines that are layered and complex. To quote Nick Mills, the wines have lift rather than weight, precision rather than opulence, and finesse rather than fullness.

The Rippon 2008 pinot nor has layers of red fruit and aromas of rhubarb and rose, plus a remarkable balance of sweet fruit and racy acidity. It retails for $41 in Hong Kong and is a bargain when compared with premier cru burgundies.

The 2009 Rippon riesling has long length and zippy acids mixed with a range of citrus flavors. It is a wine to match with fried dumplings. It sells for $25 in Hong Kong. Both wines are available online from Altaya Wines. Other Rippon pinots can be purchased online from the vineyard.

A contemporary of Nick Mills also making remarkable pinot in New Zealand is Mike Weersing, an American who scoured the world looking for his ideal location. He found it near Christchurch on New Zealand’s south island.

Weersing makes riesling and pinot noir under the Pyramid Valley label. When he started he bought fruit from other regions: The 2008 Calvert pinot comes from Central Otago, while the 2007 Eaton pinot was made from Marlborough fruit. These are lovely wines, and they retail for $43 in Hong Kong.

In the November 2009 edition of Decanter magazine Matthew Jukes wrote that the 2007 Calvert pinot contained “more drama” than a case of Vosne-Romanee and the wine left him “panting for more”.

Equally impressive are the latest-release pinots from the 2009 vintage, made from estate-grown fruit. They are named after local weeds, angel flower and earth smoke, and retail in Hong Kong for $60. These exceptional wines are bargains compared with premier cru burgundies.

In the glass they appear cloudy but they have wondrous aromas and flavors. Read the tasting notes at http://www.pyramidvalley.co.nz/wines.html to appreciate the attention to detail Weersing puts into his wines.

Weersing told me his wines received no fining or filtering, and were fermented in clay containers before going into oak. “The advantage is the extra flavor,” Weersing said, “but the disadvantage is less clarity.”

My favorite was the angel flower with its aromas of cherry and wild rose, and a wide range of spices: cloves and cinnamon and orange peel. An elegant and unusual wine

I am content with wines that look murky but make me want to embrace a second and a third glass. Surely that is one definition of a fine wine. All are available online from Altaya Wines.

* “Wines that match the beauty of their locations” in China Daily, page 12, 31 December 2011. Find link here.

Wines from Alsace in eastern France are not well known in China and that is a pity because white wines from this region pair superbly with a wide range of Chinese food.

Schlumberger is one of the best producers in Alsace. The vineyard, in the village of Guebwiller, has light sandy soil – the result of the erosion of the pink sandstone in the region. The climate is so good that it is known as the “valley of flowers”.

Schlumberger focuses on white grape varieties, mainly riesling, pinot gris and gewurtztraminer. The family has the largest area of grand cru vineyards in the region.

The vineyard has an entry level of wines as well as grand cru. What makes these wines such a bargain is the high proportion of grand cru fruit in them. The grapes come from younger grand cru vines – sometimes up to 40 per cent.

These wines are known as the Les Princes Abbés range. In 728 Saint Pirmin founded Murbach Abbey in Guebwiller. The abbey’s Benedictine monks made wine in the region for 1,000 years.

In 1298 Emperor Frederic II gave the head of the abbey the title of Prince Abbot, which later became known as Prince Abbé. Because the “Princes Abbés” took care of the vineyard for such a long time, the Schlumberger family decided to pay tribute to them in naming the range “Princes Abbés”.

These wines are delightful when young and go well with spicy Chinese dishes. My favourite was the 2007 riesling. It had a powerful combination of zingy acids and luscious fruit. This wine retails for about $15 in Hong Kong and is a bargain.

The abbots lost power during the French Revolution that started in 1789. In 1810 Nicolas Schlumberger bought the vineyard and about 20 hectares of vines. His grandson Ernest Schlumberger (1885-1954) enlarged the vineyard to 110 hectares and over time it has grown to its current size of 140 hectares. Half of those 140 hectares are classified as grand cru and consist of four “terroirs”: Kitterle, Kessler, Saering and Spiegel.

CEO Alain Beydon-Schlumberger, grandson of Ernest, is the sixth generation of his family to make wine in the valley. He said yields were kept low to concentrate fruit flavors. It shows in the grand cru wines. Two thirds of all production is exported.

The 2007 Saering grand cru riesling is a wonderful wine that will cellar for at least two decades but is approachable now. It exhibits classic Alsace characteristics: a combination of austerity and minerality – a result of the region’s limestone – plus a lusciousness in the mouth.

The flavors linger in one’s mouth like a fond memory of childhood. I could drink this wine on its own but it would be superb with fresh oysters. It retails for about $27 in Hong Kong.

In a recent Decanter tasting of 112 Alsatian rieslings, this wine came top and received one of the few gold medals. Decanter gave it 19 out of 20. It is a wine I would love to meet again in 20 years.

Also excellent was the 2007 Spiegel pinot gris grand cru. It smelled of candied fruit, quince and apples and those aromas carried through in the mouth. The wine’s slight smokiness means it would match well with Peking duck. Alain Beydon-Schlumberger suggested it should be served with pan-fried foie gras with mirabelle plums. I would be most content with either combination. The wine sells for about $28 in Hong Kong.

Highlight of the Altaya-provided tasting I attended was the 2001 late harvest pinot gris. These wines are the rarest from the vineyard, and are only produced in exceptional years. The taste lingered in my mouth like the memory of the first time I saw the Mona Lisa’s smile in the Louvre museum in Paris. The flavors danced on my palate, a perfect balance of fruit and acidity, and I can still taste the ripe pears and candied fruit.

Most wines can be purchased online from Altaya wines (http://altayawines.com/).

* “Why grand cru deserves great ado” in China Daily, 24 December 2011, page 12. Find a link here.

Chateau Beau-Sejour Bécot from Bordeaux’s right bank in St Emilion was classified as a premier grand cru until 1985 when it was controversially demoted to grand cru status.

The INAO, the French institution that regulates French agricultural products, returned that status in 1996, and since then the wines have continued to receive accolades.

This month (December 2011) Decanter magazine in the United Kingdom published its list of the 50 best-value French wines, based on results from 1,242 wines submitted for panel tastings in the past year. The 2006 and the 2004 vintages of Chateau Beau-Sejour Becot topped that list.

The vineyard has 16.5 hectares made up of 70 per cent merlot, 24 per cent cabernet franc and the rest cabernet sauvignon.

Michel Bécot bought the estate in 1969. Juliette Bécot presented a range of estate wines to a group of wine lovers at the China Club in Hong Kong. The magnificent setting was an appropriate location for these marvelous creations. David Pedrol, product director for Yesmywine.com, organised the evening. Yesmywine is China’s leading online wine retailer.

Madame Bécot said “wine making is about emotion” as much as terroir and climate. She said the vineyard was on limestone that acted as a sponge to retain water for the vines in hot summers. The 1990 vintage was especially hot.

For her, winemaking was analogous to cooking: it was about careful selection of the best ingredients. “My vineyard is like a garden where I grow the best fruit.”

Rather than a vertical tasting, wines from different vintages were paired with Chinese food. The meal began with assorted appertisers such as barbecued pork presented with the 2007 edition.

The wine has an elegant sweet nose and good length, with hints of caramel and dark berry fruits in the mouth, and chalky tannins. The chalkiness echoes the vineyard’s limestone terroir. This wine retails for about $70. Prices are approximations based on $7 HK for the US dollar.

The 1990 and 1999 vintages were served with sautéed fillet of garoupa with asparagus, and lightly fried king prawns. I still have reservations about serving red wines, however elegant, with seafood. More on that later.

The 1990 ($200) was soft and refined, with aromas of prunes and tea. This was a wine that changed each time I tasted it, a reflection of the complexity that is a hallmark of great Bordeaux. The tannins had softened yet it still has sufficient structure to be cellared for another half decade.

The 1999 ($100) was a more delicate creature, and I found its chalky and silky tannins clashed with the seafood, though the tannins did cut through the oil of the fried prawns. My tasting notes for the 1999 were sketchy, suggesting it did not impress as much as the 1990.

The 2006 ($85) appeared with sautéed beef with cashew nuts and dry chili. For me beef was appropriate but the chili tended to overwhelm the wine’s flavors. The 2006 tasted ripe, sweet and elegant with wondrous length.

My favorite was the 2004 ($83). It was vibrant in the glass with ripe aromas of cassis and blackberries. It attracted me the way one notices an elegantly dressed woman when she enters a room, evoking richness and poise. It was paired with deep-fried crispy chicken, and the wine’s acids and tannin worked well with the oiliness of the food.

A group of people around me scored the 2004 and 2006 highest without even knowing the Decanter recommendations. It’s nice to be validated.

But it might also have been a reflection of the food-wine pairings. The wines served with red meat and chicken generally tasted better than those served with seafood. Perhaps the adage about red wine with red meat still holds?

*”A wine that deserves its premier grand cru standing” in China Daily, 17 December 2011, page 12. Find a link here.

Wines from Uruguay are not well known in China, but when they become available prepare to be impressed. A tasting of wines in Hong Kong this month suggests Uruguay is ready to emerge onto the world stage.

Uruguay’s signature grape variety is tannat. Winemakers are hoping consumers will come to connect tannat with Uruguay in the same way they associate malbec with Argentina or carmenere with Chile.

Uruguay has about the same population as New Zealand – 3.4 million compared with about 4 million Kiwis – and it is appropriate to note the similarities between the nations.

Both countries have long coastlines and have a clean and green image. Both countries produce small amounts of high quality wine.

Interestingly, given its long coastline and the availability of fish, Uruguay consumes little white wine. As in China, red wine is much preferred. Red meat consumption in Uruguay is one of the highest in the world, at about 70kg per person. This is appropriate because tannat needs to matched with big meats.

Beef and lamb from Uruguay are well regarded because animals graze outside all year round, rather than being fed corn in winter, as happens in the United States. Like New Zealand, Uruguay has high regard for animal welfare.

It is a relatively flat country – the highest point is only 500 metres above sea level. Most vineyards are located in the hills north of the capital Montevideo, where the highest point is only about 220 metres.

Almost 40 per cent of all wine is made from tannat. This variety originated in Basque-influenced regions of France. A Basque Frenchman, Pascal Harriague, is credited with introducing tannat to Uruguay in 1870. He was looking for a varietal that would thrive in the country’s soil and climate. Today it is being blended with pinot noir and merlot, and more tannat is grown in Uruguay than in the country where the grapes originated.

Uruguayan tannats exhibit elegant and soft tannins with fruit flavors at the blackberry end of the spectrum. Vineyards have begun to distinguish between “old vines” descended from the original European cuttings and new clones. The newer vines tend to produce more powerful wines with higher levels of alcohol but less acidity and more complex fruit characteristics.

Uruguay has been exporting high-quality wine throughout Latin America and the United States since the early 1990s. The country has about 8,900 hectares of vineyards and perhaps 1,800 producers.

The tasting I attended involved 10 wines and there is insufficient space to talk about all of them. The tannats were intense and had spent extended periods in new oak. The whites – mostly sauvignon blanc and albarino – were crisp and fruity. The 2011 viognier I found unexciting, though it was young and immature.

The 2010 Garzon reserva tannat was dark cherry in colour with elegant aromas and ripe tannins. The 2010 Cata Mayor pinot noir spent eight months in American oak and had long length and offered aromas of mushrooms and cherry. It was an impressive wine given this was only the second vintage.

The 2006 Pisano family Fabula late harvest, a dessert wine made from torrontes grapes, had wonderful acid and fruit balance and was almost amber in colour. The first vintage was in 2003. This is a wine that will continue to improve as the vines get older.

The 2007 Licor de Tannat by Gimenez Mendez that ended the evening was a most unusual dessert wine. It was almost black in the glass with a funky, almost earthy nose, chewy tannins, and sweet blackberry flavours that lingered long after the wine was drunk.

These are all wines to seek out, though as of the time of writing Uruguayan winemakers had not found an outlet in mainland China.

“Uruguayan wines about to make grand entrance” in China Daily, December 3, page 12. Find a link here.

Earlier this year a single bottle of red wine from Chateau Junding in Shandong province sold for 27,998 RMB. Many of my friends believe it difficult to justify spending that much on one bottle. This introduces the concept of value for money when we buy wine.

Vineyards occasionally provide the wines mentioned in this column, and when they do I mention this fact. But much of the time I pay for the wines I write about, or attend tasting where I pay a fee to sample a range of wines. Given financial limits, this leads me to consider value-for-money wines.

One of the best red wines available in China in terms of price is the 2008 Sangre de Toro made by Torres (blood of the bull would be the English translation). It is available at major outlets in China for about 150 RMB. This wine is almost black and the density of the colour reflects the intensity of the fruit.

The wine offers the sensation of drinking ripe mulberries. This is meant as a positive statement. Chinese people will know that at certain times of the year mulberries are dark, sweet and luscious. It’s the same with this wine.

This red had a subtle nose that took a while to emerge. It hinted at a range of berry fruits. The wine is not overwhelmed with oak. It is like an encounter with a shy person who once encouraged displays a sauciness that is most engaging. Perhaps it’s a bit like the early stages of a relationship where neither party knows where the pairing will go. I would drink this wine with a hearty lamb dish from the western provinces of China.

The Torres feels big in the mouth though the alcohol level is moderate, at 12 per cent. I have issues with the fact the wine has a cork closure, instead of the more reliable stelvin or screw cap. But the cork is good quality and assuming reasonable storage conditions this wine should be good drinking for a couple more years.

Torres is Spain’s largest family-owned wine producer. Jancis Robinson’s Oxford Companion to Wine says the Torres family owns almost 1,000 hectares of vineyards in Spain, Chile and California. Torres’ wines are distributed in China via the Everwines brand. Everwines says by the end of 2013 it intends to have 62 retail outlets in China.

To date I have not enjoyed my encounters with Chinese wine. Perhaps I have not been in the country long enough. So it was an interesting experience to meet a Chateau Chungyu Castel red. Sadly the encounter was frustrating – yet another Chinese wine that had minimal flavour, and also did not have a vintage date. Why do so many winemakers in this country not produce wines labeled with vintage years?

The wine came in a magnificent wooden box, along with a glossy brochure in English and Chinese. The type was so small it required a magnifying glass to be read. The wine was drinkable but little more can be said than that. The colour was acceptable and the wine had good clarity. Its aroma suggested a blend of Bordeaux grape varieties. The label did not offer any explanation.

Sadly, the wine’s flavour fell away quickly and the aromas of savoury thyme and rhubarb did not linger very long. In all this was an acceptable wine. But it pales when compared with the formidable Torres described earlier.

* “Popping the quark on the question of value from the vineyard” in China Daily, 26 November 2011, page 12. Find a link here.