Tonight with dinner I drank a 2005 Meursault by Jean-Philippe Fichet. Long and lean acid tang which tasted of cashews and grapefruit. Expected ripe fruit nuances, given the 13.5 per cent alcohol, and yet the grapefruit flavours predominated, suggesting a leaner wine. It was gold-yellow in colour with a singular expression of terroir that lingered in my mouth. Loved the chalky feeling in my mouth, and the way the wine wrapped itself around palate, like a lover wanting more of my kisses. Paid 449 HKD. Would be fascinating to compare it with a wine of a similar price from the Yarra Valley in Australia, or a chardonnay from west of Auckland in New Zealand.

Last night at a tasting at Wellspring Wines in Sheung Wan I encountered a wonderful white burgundy: A Chassagne Montrachet premier cru La Grande Montagne by Domaine Fontaine. Lots of citrus fruit and minerals in the mouth. Bright greeny-gold colour. Feels new world in its full mouthfeel and vibrant aromas of lime and vanilla. Wellspring are offering a May promotion: HKD383 if purchased as part of a mixed dozen.

The story of Jean Leon wines reads like a movie script. In 1951, at the age of 19, Jean Leon stowed away aboard a ship to New York from his native Spain.

Born Ceferino Carrión in the city of Santander, he changed his name and worked as a taxi driver until he made enough money to open a restaurant.

In 1956 Leon moved to California, where in partnership with the actor James Dean he opened what became the most prestigious restaurant in Hollywood, La Scala.

Family legend says he was disappointed with the available wines so in 1964 he opened a vineyard in the Penedes region south of Barcelona in Spain, illegally obtaining cuttings of chardonnay and cabernet sauvignon while in France. The cabernet came from the famous Lafite vineyard in Bordeaux.

These were the first plantings in Spain of these grape varieties. Later Jean Leon’s New York taxi badge became the logo of the vineyard’s introductory level wines.

The Torres family bought the vineyard when Leon died in 1994. The property consists of 150 hectares, with 67 under vines.

The estate is divided into several sections known as “pagos,” and only one wine is produced in each section. All grapes for the premium wines are sourced from the vineyard. The “pago” concept is equivalent to the “cru” in Bordeaux, or the “vignetti” in Italy and the “quinta” in Portugal.

Mireia Torres Maczassek, the owner, presented premium Leon wines at a press lunch in Hong Kong.

We began with the 2007 Vinya Gigi chardonnay. Pale yellow in colour, it received six months ageing on lees in French oak barrels and then bottle aging for another half year. Leaving a wine on lees gives it more character, which explains the flavours of tropical fruits.

This is an elegant wine. The aromas of toast come from the oak barrels. The wine’s acidity balanced nicely with the toast aromas. It was like smelling lemons and limes while in a bakery. The wine had a long aftertaste – the sign of a quality product. Gigi is the name of one of Leon’s children.

A highlight was the 2001 grand reserve cabernet sauvignon. This wine was aged for 25 months in new French barriques, and then spent three years in the bottle to develop. It offers aromas of mint, eucalyptus and blackcurrants plus a slight honeyed sweetness.

The same toasty notes as the chardonnay can be attributed to the barrel ageing. Mireia Torres described the long and lingering aftertaste as “hedonistic”, and I was inclined to agree.

All grand reserve cabernets have a painting on the back label by a well-known Spanish artist, a reflection of the Torres family’s passion for the arts. The painting on the 2001 vintage is by Mireia’s mother.

The grand reserve was served with the main course, and slightly overshadowed the 2005 reserve cabernet sauvignon, served with cheeses at the end. It was a Bordeaux-style blend of 85 per cent cabernet sauvignon and 15 per cent cabernet franc.

Mireia suggested it should be kept until 2014 when it would be fun to observe how its aromas of currants and plums had softened and integrated.

It was aged for 18 months in French and American oak and then spent two years in bottle at the winery. It was dark cherry in colour with a smooth front palate and soft tannins.

A spicy aftertaste, a product of the oak ageing, combined lovingly with aromas of ripe blackberries and toast. The malolactic fermentation the winemaker used explains the soft and creamy sensation in the mouth.

Some Jean Leon wines are available in Taiwan at Finesse Cellars. The 2005 reserve cabernet retails for NTD $1,200 and the 2001 grand reserve for NTD $2,000.

* Published in China Post, Taiwan, under the headline “History of Jean Leon adds extra bouquet to delicious wines,” page 10, 17 May 2012. Find a link here.

When Matt Cline started his current vineyard in California he pondered over what to call it, and settled on the Three Wine Company.

Why Three? The philosophy was simple, he explained. Winemaking involves three things: choose appropriate terroir, work with the climate in the area, and don’t interfere. In other words, let the land or “terroir” express itself. “Hands off is the key phrase for the third part,” Cline said.

Cline has been making wine for almost 28 years. The Three philosophy produces some wondrous wines.

Many of Cline’s wines are blended, using grapes sourced from vines planted more than a century ago. Cline aims to combine grapes from old vines with modern techniques. Many of the vines grow in very sandy soils that receive no irrigation.

The only water the grapes receive is what falls from the skies, and rain is infrequent in many parts of California. This concentrates flavors, a feature of all of Cline’s wines.

Photographs of the regions where his grapes are grown show it to be almost desert. The arid nature provided one benefit: the phylloxera louse cannot survive in the sandy soil. The louse, native to North America, devastated vineyards around the world in the 1850s and 1970s.

Cline’s 2008 Evangelho zinfandel from Contra Costa County is an example of the careful merging of art and nature. The Evangelho family has been growing grapes for more than 70 years. “In 1964 Frank Evangelho took over farming this vineyard from his dad Manuel. I consider Frank one of the most meticulous and passionate growers I know,” Cline said.

This Evangelho is a blend of 79 per cent zinfandel, 12 per cent petite sirah, 4 per cent alicante bouschet, 3 per cent carignane and 2 per cent mataro. The minor chords give the wine black cherry colour while the dominant zinfandel produces a crescendo of soft tannins and blackberry flavors. This is a wine to enjoy with a casserole or spice-based lamb dishes.

Petite sirah is a grape variety unique to the United States and Australia. In Australia it is known as durif, a hybrid of shiraz and peloursin. The grape is named after Francois Durif, a botanist at the University of Montpelier who created it in 1880. It produces tannic and densely black wine. Combined in small quantities with zinfandel it provides body and strength.

Alicante bouschet is a tenturier, a French word that refers to grapes whose flesh and juice are red. Most red wines have white flesh and get their colour from skin contact. Tenturier grapes are useful for blending with lighter red grapes to give darker colour.

Another standout wine was the 2009 old vines field blend, also sourced from old vines in Contra Costa County. The blend consists of 34 per cent zinfandel, 27 per cent carignane, 19 per cent petite sirah, 17 per cent mataro, 2 per cent alicante bouschet, and 1 per cent black malvoisie.

It took time to open and should be decanted ideally in the morning before it’s enjoyed with dinner. Eventually it oozes blackberry essence and a deliciously long length. A wine worth opening in a decade.

Highlight of the tasting was the 2006 S3X late harvest riesling. The name stands for “small sweet sips”. Cline said it was only produced when conditions allowed for a natural mould called botrytis cinerea or “noble rot”.

The wine has a similar flavour profile to a trockenbeerenauslese – the finest and sweetest of German dessert wines. Intense aromas of peach and apricot mingled with just the right amount of acid zing to produce a wine that would pair perfectly with blue cheese.

This wine won a “sweepstakes award” for the best of the best wines at the 2008 San Francisco Chronicle wine competition. It was chosen as one of the top seven wines from 4,235 wines entered by more than 1,500 wineries.

Published in the Jakarta Globe, 10 May 2012, under the headline “Cultivating a mix of old and new in the Golden State”. Find a link here.

Trends detected from the fifth Wine China Expo in Beijing in late April 2012 were a drift away from a fascination with red, an interest in less-sweet wines, and a growing sophistication in wine marketing.

How do we measure sophistication? I use the mini-skirt ratio. At other wine exhibitions I have attended in China, booth owners employed attractive young women in mini skirts to market their wine. Most winemakers I spoke with talked of the inverse relationship between skirts and wine: The shorter the skirts, the worse the wine. Some of the skirts in previous years have been very revealing.

This year in Beijing I noted fewer mini-skirts.

China has not become the acme of sophistication over night. Some booth owners still offer lukewarm white wine in plastic wine glasses. Many still display their wares but do not offer them for tasting. Yes, a wine tasting without the tasting. Some decorate their booths with sweet-smelling flowers whose aromas overwhelm the flavours one detects from their wine.

But one cannot deny the growth of the wine business in China. See my other article in this edition for details. This year’s Wine China Expo was held in Beijing on April 23 and 24 April for trade people, with April 25 allocated for public visitors. The location was the China World Trade Center in Beijing. It attracted 300 exhibitors from 35 countries who paid for 450 booths (though perhaps a fifth of the booths marketed olive oil).

Robert Wu, who managed the event, said last year’s Beijing expo, also in April, attracted 200 exhibitors from 24 countries. The 50 per cent increase in the number of exhibitors this year suggests growth.

It was difficult to estimate the number of attendees in Beijing because admission is free once people register with a business card. Given the ease with which one can buy fake business cards in China, who knows how many legitimate attendees were there. The official figure for attendance was 12,000.

The expo moved to Shanghai for April 26, which must have meant some trauma for jet-lagged Western exhibitors who had to finish about 5pm on April 25 and be set up in Shanghai for 10am the next day. Domestic flights in China, especially between Beijing and Shanghai (about two hours to the south), are seldom on time.

At least at the Beijing event no-one tried to sell me fake watches, jewellery and handbags: something that has happened at earlier wine events. This article I wrote for China Daily in June 2011 describes the experiences of the Shanghai international wine festival: http://squinn.org/?p=401

It will take some years for China to match the success of VINEXPO Asia-Pacific, the major wine event held on consecutive years in Hong Kong and Bordeaux. The 2012 exhibition from May 29-31 at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre will assemble a record 1,050 exhibitors from 28 countries, and anticipates 14,000 buyers from around the world.

At this year’s Beijing event I noted that while red wines remain popular, but sensed whites and sparklings might be starting to gain a foothold. Many of the wines my colleagues and I tasted were less sweet than in previous years. Moscato appears to be emerging as a popular variety.

The expo also saw the first booth occupied by a Canadian winemaker, Unsworth Vineyards, from Mill Bay in British Columbia.

One interesting feature was the number of booths marketing wines from former Soviet countries like Georgia, or former Communist-aligned nations such as Romania.

Romania’s wine producers are looking to China for their future. A special wine-loading terminal is being built in Galati harbour on the country’s east coast. It is a contract between Romanian exporters and Chinese investors. China’s national news agency, Xinhua, reported the deal was worth about 50 million euros ($US 70 million).

Romania has eight main wine regions, 37 vineyards, and 171 viticulture centres. The industry was worth 270 million euros ($US 375 million) last year.

Because of its economic growth rate of 9 per cent in 2011, and a steadily rising number of wine consumers, China has established itself as one of the world’s ten largest wine markets. China’s wine industry in the first quarter of 2011 was worth RMB 7.37 billion (up 23.8 per cent from the previous year) with sales of RMB 7.272 billion (up 26.2 per cent).

Imported wines represented 15 per cent of the total market and were expected to rise dramatically. China Customs reports that the annual growth rate of imported wines was about 30 per cent.

The top four distribution points for imported wines were hotels and restaurants, supermarkets and stores, terminal outlets, and group purchases. This represented 95 per cent of total sales.

Chinese taxes on imported wines are high, compared with Hong Kong where taxes were abolished in June 2008.

All imported wines attract customs duty of 14 per cent. Add to that another 17 per cent of value-added tax (VAT) and then a consumption tax of 10 per cent of the previous prices. In all, it adds about 42 per cent to the original cost.

China’s wine market doubled in the five years to 2011, influenced by the adoption of Western culinary habits and a rise in personal incomes. Based on this growth rate, by the end of 2012 China will be the seventh largest wine-consuming nation in the world. By then the Chinese will be drinking 1,000 million bottles of wine a year.

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Hong Kong is Asia’s wine capital, a survey released in conjunction with VINEXPO Asia-Pacific has confirmed. But China remains the dominant player because of its huge population and growing wealth.

In its tenth annual survey for VINEXPO, the International Wine and Spirit Research (IWSR) company found Hong Kong residents drink an average of five litres of wine a year. It is the highest per capita figure in Asia and more than twice the average in Japan and Singapore, and four times the number for mainland China.

To provide a European perspective: Italians drink 10 times as much. So Asia has a long way to go, suggesting potential markets for the world’s winemakers.

Hong Kong’s wine consumption is predicted to rise 34 per cent over the next five years. But the forecast rise is even higher for mainland China: 46 per cent.

If China’s current consumption were combined with Hong Kong’s we would see the world’s fifth biggest wine market, just ahead of the UK.

Wine consumption in China
Data from China Customs show China imported 260 million litres of wine in 2010, or about 346 million standard-size bottles. This represented a rise of 58 per cent compared with the previous year. Data for 2011 were not yet available.

The IWSR survey predicted consumption in China would rise 54 per cent between 2011 and 2015 to more than 1,000 million bottles. “By 2015 Chinese drinkers will be consuming an average of 1.9 litres a head.” This should have some wine merchants drooling in anticipation.

China also makes a lot of wine and is in the global top 10 of producers. Last year China produced about 10.9 million hectolitres. Almost all of that wine is consumed domestically. Almost all of what I tried while living in China last year was poor quality.

Despite the country’s vast size, it is difficult to find regions suited to grape growing. Summers tend to be too hot and humid. Winters can be bitterly cold and temperatures below minus 5C can kill vine roots. Some international grape varieties struggle in this climate.

Australian viticulturalists working in China report horror stories of local farmers cutting fences to let their goats graze on young vines.

Several French companies have joint ventures. Dynasty partnered with Remy Martin in 1980 to make wine in Tianjin province. Helan Mountain works with Pernod Ricard in Ningxia, south of Inner Mongolia. Domaines Baron de Rothchild has a joint agreement with the Citic Group in Shandon province.

Debra Meiburg MW has been living and reporting on the Asian wine market for a quarter century. She said emphasis was being placed on wine education and the spread of wine culture, which was the core focus of Meiburg Wine Media, and this was beginning to bear fruit. “The recent excitement surrounding domestic wine production in China, with foreign companies entering joint ventures and starting production across the country with increasing regularity, can only support this trend.”

Between 2006 and 2010 French wine exports to China rose seven fold. Interestingly, cognac consumption rose 68 per cent in those same years, and IWSR predicts a further 47 per cent growth in the half decade to 2015.

The Italian Central Statistics Institute reports that imports of Italian wine to China doubled in value in 2010. Debra Meiburg MW confirmed the Italian government had been investing a huge amount of time and energy into developing the Chinese market, where they have not so far had nearly the impact of France.

Wine Australia reported that country’s wine exports to China increased an astonishing 565 per cent between 2001 and 2010.

China is already the world’s biggest market for Bordeaux. CWW vice president Jancis Robinson MW told a press conference for the Wine Futures event in Hong Kong in November 2011 that the demand from Hong Kong and China has fuelled massive price rises in Bordeaux.

Robinson wondered if any of the stock of the world’s finest wines would be available once the people of Hong Kong and China had taken their share. “I take an old-fashioned approach that wine is for drinking, not investing.”

Meanwhile, Chinese companies have been quietly buying Bordeaux estates, and vineyards in Australia and South Africa. Daniel Carmagnat, of Bordeaux property agency A2Z, said Chinese companies wanted “a foothold in one of the most prestigious wine regions in the world”.

For example, last year Chinese luxury goods company Hong Kong A&A International bought a controlling interest in one of Bordeaux’s oldest estates, Château Richelieu.

A billionaire Chinese investor purchased the Château Chenu Lafitte estate in Côtes de Bourg as a gift for his son. And Philippe Raoux, owner of Château d’Arsac in Margaux, sold his 20-hectare Lalande-de-Pomerol estate Château Viaud to Cofco, a company owned by the Chinese government that controls the Great Wall wine brand.

In September 2010, Lisa Perrotti-Brown MW reviewed Chinese wines for Robert Parker’s Wine Advocate for the first time. A Bordeaux blend, Grace Vineyard Chairman’s Reserve 2008, received the highest score – 85 points. Grace Vineyard’s Deep Blue 2008, another Bordeaux blend, got 83 points.

The chairman’s reserve retails for about 488 RMB in China (£49) and Deep Blue sells for about 288 RMB (£29). An Indonesian-Chinese businessman, CK Chan, founded Grace Vineyard in 1997 with the help of a Bordeaux oenologist, Denis Boubals. It is located on the Taigu plateau, 40km south of Taiyuan, the capital of Shanxi province. Mr Chan’s daughter, Judy Leissner, manages the vineyard.

Are all Chinese drinkers the same? They generally prefer full-bodied red wines, Hong Kong wholesaler Defranco Leung said. About 92 per cent of all wine consumed is red. But each city had its own preferences.

People in Xiamen in Fujian province liked sweet wines, while folks further south preferred drier ones, wine wholesaler Nikolas Prehn said.

Jancis Robinson MW, asked her opinion of Chinese wine at the Wine Futures press conference, said China had produced some “quite nice” bottles. It was only in past few years that any “decent wine” has been made in China. Robinson said only wine from four producers had impressed her. “For many it’s too early to say.” It was not likely Chinese wine would be exported, except as “a novelty”.

Robinson also highlighted the need for wine education. “Increasingly I see a need for independent sources of education, rather than people in the [wine] business.”

Education about wine would improve the situation markedly in China. While in Foshan near Guangzhou I was taken to a high-end restaurant where my hosts asked me to choose the wine. I selected a second growth 2004 Bordeaux, which cost about £65. The wine waiter supplied excellent glasses, decanted the wine at a nearby table, and then filled every glass except mine. By the time I got to taste the wine, which was corked, the 11 other guests had drained their glasses, and were complimenting me on my choice. The second bottle was fine, but the third was also corked, though again I did not get a chance to taste it until all other glasses had been filled.

Debra Meiburg MW said many Chinese consumers’ tastes in wine had less to do with flavour preferences and more to do with what was deemed socially acceptable to consume. Her company is based in Hong Kong.

“We see this tendency in nearly all young wine-consuming markets: consumers’ lack of confidence in their ability to judge wine quality for themselves will lead them to make consumption decisions that may have very little to do with their palates or with their food styles,” she said. “Hence the overwhelming preference for dark, tannic red wines in China even though many food styles are either too delicate or too spicy to be a good match for these wines, at least according to conventional western pairing principles.”

For this reason Meiburg launched the Cathay Pacific Hong Kong International Wine & Spirit Competition. Wines are only judged by Asian-born and Asian-based judges. A segment of the competition focuses on finding the best wine match for regional specialties.

Hong Kong’s wine market
This city is a wine-drinkers’ paradise. The government abolished all duties on wine in June 2008. Removal of taxes was the major factor for the development of a flourishing market, combined with cheap taxis and excellent public transport. Residents of some cities limit consumption because they need to drive. Hong Kong people take taxis.

I can buy quality wine in Hong Kong shops for half the price I have paid for the same wine at the cellar or vineyard door. The range and variety is superb. Wine events are offered almost every night of the week.

Since 2008 Hong Kong has also become established as the regional hub for the Chinese and Asian wine markets. Two in five bottles that arrive are re-exported to the region.

Last year Hong Kong wine sales increased by almost 7 per cent, to a total of 39 million bottles. Consumption doubled in the half decade to 2010. French wine remains the most popular, accounting for 28 per cent of sales ahead of Australia (20 per cent) and the United States (11 per cent). American wine consumption is expected to increase by 10 per cent over the next five years, analysts suggest.

Nine bottles in 10 consumed in Hong Kong are red. The amount of sparkling wine and champagne drunk is tiny: perhaps 0.5 per cent of the total. But Hong Kong people drink twice as much “bubbly” as the rest of Asia combined, which suggests some cause for potential celebration. And perhaps the need for a marketing campaign for this kind of drink.

Late in 2011 Debra Meiburg MW launched a book about the market. “When we compiled Debra Meiburg’s Guide to the Hong Kong Wine Trade we ultimately gained insights from over 250 active import businesses, and listed an additional 100 that seem to be operational (if unresponsive). This is a significant increase on the number in operation in 2005.”

Because of the lack of legal or financial barriers to entry, many businesses entered without necessarily having sufficient understanding of the risks and challenges involved. “Of the new entrants, some are wine enthusiast who made the transition to wine from other industries – especially finance, which was collapsing just as the wine industry was starting to take off in Hong Kong,” Meiburg said. “Others were trading companies engaged in other import businesses who found that they could easily bring in a few bottles of wine along with the shipments of, for example, leather footwear they were already shipping in from Europe. Many of these businesses have since either closed or been acquired, and it’s quite probable that we are only at the beginning.”

This was not because the market as a whole was becoming less lucrative, Meiburg said, but because competition was now much too fierce for anyone who was not willing to invest effort and capital into their business to survive. “On the other hand,” she said, “I think we will start to see a lot more diversity in the actual wine offerings in our market. We used to have a very split market, in which the top end was dominated by very expensive bottles from France and the low end by very inexpensive bottles from Chile. But it is actually our mid-market that has picked up the most steam these past few years and this is a field in which many other countries, including Argentina, Italy and Spain, and lesser-known regions of France, have some wonderful offerings that will hopefully be much more prevalent on our market from now on.”

Hong Kong consumers appear to be becoming more discerning. VINEXPO data show sales of wine for under £3 (about 36 HKD) grew less than 1 per cent between 2006-2010. Purchases of wines between £3 and £6.5 (HKD 37-80) grew by almost 11 per cent. But the highest growth was for wine priced at more than £7 – up by almost 15 per cent.

Jancis Robinson MW told the Wine Futures conference in Hong Kong in November 2011 that she was surprised at how rapidly Hong Kong had emerged as a centre for quality wine. She was also concerned about how quickly prices for high-end wines were rising.

My attendance at auctions confirms the trend. In January 2012 in Hong Kong, Zachys, a US company, auctioned the cellar of Dr Joseph Weinstock, a close friend of wine writer Robert Parker. About $US 5 million went under the hammer that morning. Another $US 7.3 million was spent at the previous Zachys auction in Hong Kong last November. Buyers from the mainland bid via the phone and online.

Auctioneers have been known to speak at 350 words a minute and sell two or three lots a minute. These figures provide a snapshot of January’s 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. The current exchange rate is about 12 HKD to the pound.

VINEXPO chief executive Robert Beynat described Hong Kong as the “nerve centre” of the international wine and spirits industry. Asia was now the “most important new market” and Hong Kong was “especially vigorous”. VINEXPO Asia-Pacific will be held in Hong Kong from May 29-31.

The annual VINEXPO / International Wine and Spirit Research survey is regarded as the largest and most detailed analysis of the world wine market. It covers 28 producing countries and 114 markets.

VINEXPO exhibitors will come from 35 countries. For this year’s event South Africa and the United States more than doubled their total stand areas from the previous event two years ago. The exhibition alternates each year between Bordeaux and Hong Kong. Chinese exhibitors this year include Grace Vineyard, Yantai Changyu Pioneer Wine and Dynasty Fine Wines. The full list of exhibitors can be found at www.vinexpo.com.

* Stephen Quinn joined the Circle of Wine Writers in April 2012. Based in Hong Kong, he writes about wine for China Daily, the South China Morning Post, and a range of magazines.

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Some of the world’s oldest wine-growing regions are receiving fresh recognition after many decades when the wine world knew little of them. One of the most beautiful is the Taman Peninsula in southern Russia.

The peninsula was originally a collection of islands. The Greeks colonised the islands and made wine there about 2,600 years ago. But viticulture died soon after they left and was not resurrected until the nineteenth century.

The best-known winery on the peninsula is Fanagoria Estate, named after the original Greek colony of Phanagoria.

The vineyard is surrounded by the Black Sea to the west and south and the Sea of Azov to the north, and has fertile black soils. The Crimea is a mere five kilometres away, across the water to the south.

Fanagoria has 2,260 hectares of vineyards and the winery produces 26 million bottles a year, making it Russia’s biggest producer of estate-bottled wine. Export manager Mike Lelyuk said all wines were made on the estate.

Many of the vines are relatively young, and new plantings mostly consist of traditional varieties such as cabernet sauvignon and riesling.

In 1985 president Mikhail Gorbachev launched a campaign to fight alcohol abuse by uprooting vineyards in the then Soviet Union. The result meant a significant fall in the amount of wine available. Russian vineyards have been trying to recover since.

Wine in the region is traditionally fermented in qvevri, or clay amphoras, before being aged in oak and then bottled. The qvevri are lined with beeswax.

Australian consultant John Worontschak, based in London, has worked extensively with Fanagoria to improve winemaking methods and viticulture.

His work has paid off. Four Fanagoria wines won medals in the inaugural China wine awards last year. These were available for tasting at the 2012 awards in Hong Kong in late February.

One of the nicest of Fanagoria’s output was the 2009 reserve cabernet rosé. It has good acid and lovely strawberry flavours in the mouth and on the nose, and would be an ideal drink with dumplings. Some analysts suggest it has been targeted at Russian women, but it is a wine that could appeal to both genders. The wine also won a bronze medal at the Hong Kong wine and spirits show last November.

The Riesling-based 2009 icewine is lovely. Only two companies make icewine in Russia. Grapes typically ripen on the vine in October but icewines are left untouched until full winter some months later. Winter sucks water from the grapes and concentrates flavors.

Mike Lelyuk said some years the grapes freeze solid and when harvested produce small yields because most of the water is left behind as crystals during the pressing.

Icewine has intense flavors. This one had a lovely balance of zingy lemon acid and lingering tastes of honey and apricots. It sells for about $60 a half bottle but is worth it, especially when one compares the price with famous dessert wines such as sauternes from Bordeaux and tokaji (tokay) from Hungary.

Fanagoria also makes an icewine from a local red grape called saperavi, also grown on the Taman peninsula. It is not as intense of the riesling-based wine but still worth trying.

Unlike many vineyards around the world, Fanagoria makes its own oak barrels. The company owns oak forests about 300 kilometres from the vineyard and exports barrels. Given the high price of French oak, this seems a smart investment.

About 90 judges tasted almost 500 wines at this year’s China wine awards in Hong Kong. The judges were wine buyers, distributors, sommeliers, and food and beverage directors based in Greater China. This year’s event focused on best value for money, with awards created “to give lower price point wines the opportunity to shine and to be further exposed to the rapidly growing market,” the awards press release said.

That might explain the unusually high number of gold medals (155), which meant about one in three wines received a top award. At many wine shows, only about 3 to 5 per cent of wines receive a gold medal.

* Published  in China Daily on 9 March 2012, under the headline “Old vineyards earn brand new recognition”. Find a link here.

A friend gave me a mixed dozen for Chinese new year, mostly from the mid to late 1990s, and in recent days 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.

In 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 these last for years. Table wines made from the same grape are not so long-lived.

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.

* “Well, not all wines get better with age” in China Daily, 25 February 2012, page 12. Find a link here.

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.

* “Does a glass a day keep the doctor away? Here’sto your health!” in China Daily, 18 February 2012, page 12. Fine a link here.

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 meso-climate is similar to that of Burgundy. Meso-climate is a viticultural term that refers to the place, the region, weather, soil, sunlight and temperature.

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.

* “Wines that know where they’re from” in China Daily, 4 February 2012, page 12. Find link here.