Cultural Revamp Needed for Wine Reviews in China

There been tons of news lately on the expansion of wine markets into China. Analysts see huge potential for wine sales in this well populated country. With the economy down (I know you wanted to hear that again), so are sales to the world’s largest traditional wine markets like Britain and America. To help tap the market, Wine Australia recently put on the 2009 Australian Wine Showcase in southern China. This July there’s even an industry expo aimed at helping businesses understand Chinese liquor import intricacies. 

All set! Maybe not.

Yesterday, Decanter magazine released an article noting that some Asian wine drinkers have difficulty relating to Western descriptions of wine. Wine with so-called aromas of bacon fat and Twizzlers might just not cut it for the average Chinese wine drinker. There a huge wine writing niche out there if you speak Mandarin or Cantonese and understand Chinese culture.

Imagine a world before Robert Parker, Jancis Robinson or the multitude of other influential wine writers and reviewers. These are people made famous by other people wanting to know how a wine tastes. Think about the wine score and accompanying review on display at your local liquor store. A high score and a couple of yummy adjectives has likely caused you to choose wine over another. Maybe that wine was great, but maybe it didn’t suit your particular palate. Famed wine critic Robert Parker is known to like bold, fruit driven wine. His wine reviews are so influential, that legend has it some wineries tweek a wine’s flavour profile to suit Parker’s tastes and ensure a great score.  

If you could sci-fi it up and erase this system from our collective consciousness, what would you invent in its place? 

 The following are some badly thought through considerations that I’m making up now over coffee and an empty stomach. I’m sure someone(s) in China can rock it way better and “give the people want they want”.

• would you invent a whole new lexicon for wine reviewers to pick and choose from? 
• how would you make a Chinese-friendly wine glossary famous enough for everyone to want to use?
• would you want to have a pinnacle figure like Parker to distribute wine information to the masses?
• would you prefer to create a social network style wine website (like Booze Monkey) where Chinese people can rate and review wines? would wine drinkers in Chinese even use the internet for social networking?
• would a grassroots wine vocab develop out of this sort of website (akin to the way hash tags are created and followed in sites like Twitter)
• start a consulting business working directly with wineries; write culturally interesting wine descriptions for each label on the Chinese market

New Job New Posts

Hi all, 

Thanks for checking in for new posts. I just started a new job this week working in a British Columbia vineyard, so new posts are slow out of the gate. Pop back near the end of the week!

Cheers,
Heather

p.s. There have been some fantastic sunsets in Vancouver this week. If you want a wicked procrastination tool, check out the live webcam facing the neighbourhood of Kitsilano & English Bay:  www.katkam.ca.  

Here’s a great sunset shot I took last year:

Wine Library TV: try out Gary V, it’s addictive

A couple months ago I stumbled across Wine Library TV, which is a video blog of wine tastings by New Jersey wine shopist Gary Vaynerchuk. He’s got a crazy loud style, but has so much knowledge you can’t help watching more, and more, and more.

Here’s a clip of an episode featuring Australian wines. Watch it and see what you think (and let me know!). Love the episode, though I wish he’d give more consideration to aging and decanting the Penfolds wine.

This episode and a slew of others can be found at the source:  Wine Library TV

okay, prepare yourself….

Wine Stained Cow’s Teeth

Scientific studies generally help us learn that our favourite things are bad. Despite an unwillingness to know this information, we usually we end up reading these news items, in a manner reminiscent of glancing at road kill while driving. I hope you’ll keep reading this article and join me in counteracting a recent ‘road kill sighting’.

Earlier this month I stumbled across an article describing a study that found white wine is a culprit in staining your teeth. Wha? No! Oh well, it’s not as if I’ll really stop drinking white wine (except that my brain will likely point out this possibility until the memory is shelved). Hoping to think of ways to subtly mock these scientific results, I continued to read the article. That’s when I noticed researchers tested the theory by submerging cows teeth in the wine. *dramatic pause* 

Now that we’ve individually formed images of these tests (did you picture cows lined up, standing still with their bared teeth sunk into special trays full of wine?), let’s disregard the results and think about fantastic white wine. 

 

What’s your favourite white wine, any country? Admit anything here folks.

A few of mine:
Howard Park Chardonnay, Western Australia
Peter Lehmann Semillion, South Australia
Yalumba Shiraz-Viognier, South Australia (for a double staining whammy of red and white) 
Viognier, Township 7, British Columbia
Pinot Blanc, Cedar Creek, British Columbia 
Sauvignon Blanc, Kim Crawford, New Zealand 

Food & White Wine Pairing:
Chinese food can be tricky to pair with wine, especially spicy food, which can make oaked wines seem bitter. Give pinot gris from Alsace, France a shot with hoisin pork. 

I’d love to hear your comments on great white wine!  Cheers.