For some time before the trip I was asked repeatedly if China even had a wine industry.

I had heard of one wine, Dynasty, but had never tried it. I can now say that yes,

There are wines made in China!

I wrote this report in 1996 after running from my visit to China. Since then China has grown into the 5th largest producer of wines in the world (as of 2009). The rest of it is still accurate. The industry is improving and there are many more players but there is still a long way to go.

Dynasty is by far the most successful, but it is not the only winery. In fact there are some 100 wineries in China. The problem is that many of these wineries only produce brandy or traditional Chinese alcoholic beverages and medicines. Jiu is the Chinese term for all alcohol, and they tend to lump them all together in their minds, whether it is grape wine (putao jiu) or beer (pi jiu) or liquor (jiu), they refer to them interchangeably. This is one of the most important insights to the Chinese wine industry.

Premium cork finished wines made from vinifera grapes (such as Cabernet and Chardonnay) are still a minority. The wines (and from here out I will refer only to European style wines) tend to be very light although reasonably well made.

There are two major problems plaguing the Chinese wine industry. The first is getting the farmers to let the grapes ripen. Almost always the grapes are picked early so the farmers have no fear of rot or other harvest dangers, and this leads to wines that must have a great deal of sugar added to them to produce table wines. The second is economics. A bottle of wine can sell for no more than $3 a bottle to compete in the market, and the Chinese $3 bottles of wine are not unlike our $3 bottles of wine.

The immense potential of a country with 1.2 billion people (and 300 Million of them are sophisticated city dwellers) has led foreign (primarily French) investors to set up Joint Ventures with the Chinese, such as Dynasty Winery (Remy-Martin). There will come a day when the wines of China are commonly found in Chinese restaurants around the world, and the wines of the world are found in China.