An exploration of local culture can illuminate how a country’s wine industry took shape and inform an understanding of its current efforts and concerns. In China, the attraction and challenges of Vitis vinifera, the unique perspectives on traditional Chinese medicine and biodynamic practices, and wine’s less-prominent role in drinking culture are key factors that help demystify the country’s distinct wine landscape.
Most wines around the world are made from the grape species called Vitis vinifera. Although China has a wide range of local grape species (such as Vitis amurensis), Vitis vinifera grapes did not originate in China, and there is no evidence of their commercial cultivation until Zhang Bishi introduced 124 vinifera varieties from Europe in the 1890s. Therefore, even though China has a long history of grapegrowing, it should be regarded as a New World country of winemaking when considering Vitis vinifera varieties.
Like grapegrowers and winemakers in any other New World wine-producing country, those in China sought role models of established wine regions. Not surprisingly, they were attracted to the famous region of Bordeaux, and the Bordelais philosophy began to infiltrate Chinese wine production early on. Leading Chinese wine producers, such as Changyu Pioneer Wine Company and China Great Wall Wine, embraced the Bordeaux mindset, and the entire Chinese wine industry emphasized Bordeaux varieties. Today, Cabernet Sauvignon is still considered the most important vinifera grape variety in China.
Yet in China, it is challenging to grow Cabernet Sauvignon and many other Vitis vinifera varieties at a large scale. The climate is either too continental or distinctly semitropical, lacking the ideal Mediterranean climatic pattern. Winter vine burial is a common practice to preserve vines in provinces such as Ningxia, Hebei, Xinjiang, and Shanxi because of the extremely dry, cold, and sometimes windy winters. In some areas, vine burial costs can be up to 30% of the overall viticultural costs for the year, and the risks of vine death from harsh winters or damage during the burying and unburying operations are significant. On the other hand, in the province of Shandong, vines do not need to be buried thanks to milder winters, but the semitropical monsoon climate results in high disease pressure and large vintage variation. For instance, in the 2021 vintage, significant rainfall and hail in Shandong right before harvest damaged grapes—along with many other important crops.
Why, then, are Chinese producers trying so hard to make more competitive wine products? It is because of the great support of the government. In China, no industry can prosper without support from the central and local governments, and—fortunately for the wine business—the cultivation of Vitis vinifera can benefit the government as well as regional development. In Ningxia Province, for example, the land is inhospitable to cultivating rice, which is the most important agricultural product in China. Although fantastic goji berries, watermelon, and apples thrive there, the market for those crops has become stagnant in recent decades. Grapevines offer promise as a potential new star crop for assisting the government in transforming the rural areas of Ningxia. They yield reliably; are used to produce alcohol, which is a great source of tax income for the government (China defines domestic wines as light industrial products when making taxation policies); and might eventually help establish wine tourism in Ningxia. The East Foothill of Helan Mountain region, in particular, offers a magnificent landscape to attract tourists.
But this effort is also about the inherent quality of the wines. Around the world, there are many high-quality wines from marginal or extreme growing environments where determined producers make small-scale wine with careful site selections, and China is no different. Since Jia Bei Lan, from the He Lan Qing Xue winery (Ningxia Province), won the Red Bordeaux Varietal Over £10 International Trophy in the 2011 Decanter World Wine Awards, there has been a rising number of superpremium wines, often Cabernet Sauvignon based. These wines have continued to receive critical acclaim and high scores in wine competitions and publications. Examples include wines from small-to-medium-sized family businesses, such as Kanaan (Ningxia Province) and Grace Vineyard (Shanxi Province), and luxury projects from corporate giants, including Ao Yun (Yunnan Province) by LVMH and Long Dai (Shandong Province) by DBR Lafite.
Quality Chinese wines can also be produced at a large scale, thanks to the country’s culture of hard work and active thinking. The younger generation of producers is exploring alternative varieties that can produce flavorful wines in large volumes despite China’s extreme continentality (or high humidity) and short growing season. In recent years, Marselan has been recognized as a variety that’s worth promoting because of its large yield potential, strong resistance to diseases, and pleasing flavor profiles even when grown in challenging conditions. Although Marselan was bred by crossing Cabernet Sauvignon and Grenache in southern France in the 1960s, French producers are learning from the Chinese, who have more experience with this grape. Winemakers in Ningxia Province are successfully experimenting with varieties such as Malbec both for large- and small-scale production. Perhaps one or more signature grape varieties for China will soon emerge.
Chinese producers are making all types and styles of wine, from white to red to rosé; from dry to sweet; from traditional method sparkling with lengthy autolysis to pét-nat. Some producers are on the promising pathway of defining the terroir expression of specific growing areas. The sister wineries of Domaine Franco-Chinois and Canaan Wine Estate, for example, realized the unique combination of naturally high acidity and fruit ripeness of Huailai County in Hebei Province.
There is a strong link between Rudolf Steiner’s biodynamic farming philosophies and traditional Chinese medicine. The central philosophies of traditional Chinese medicine formed and evolve around the cosmological thinking of qi (气), the energy that constitutes and organizes matter and causes growth and change, based on the interactions of yin and yang (阴阳) and the Wu Xing (五行), the five elements of wood, fire, earth, metal, and water. Rudolf Steiner’s lectures and publications on biodynamic viticulture are filled with language about the energy flow of the cosmos (qi), opposing forces (yin and yang), and five elements. Agriculture based on the lunar calendar is very familiar to Chinese farmers.
Although the Chinese tend to understand biodynamic viticulture better than most Western people, it is impossible to employ biodynamic viticulture for most modern-day wine production in China. As the government began to support domestic winemaking in recent decades, local farmers needed to quickly learn how to grow an unfamiliar type of crop and to meet the government’s goals of agricultural development. Consequently, viticulture in China is mostly about larger-scale farming and is almost absent of delimited areas of production. (Currently, there is just one official wine region in China: East Foothill of Helan Mountain, in Ningxia Province.) There are a few wineries exploring biodynamic viticulture, including Silver Heights and Domaine des Arômes, but most producers in China employ methods of industrial agriculture.
This doesn’t mean that growers always follow conventional agriculture recipes. Experienced viticulturists integrate traditional farming philosophies and advanced vineyard technologies to achieve optimal results and achieve greater sustainability. In the areas where vines are buried during the winter, vine-training methods that are more advanced, such as the Chang or Mini-J systems, greatly reduce the death rate of the vines. In these systems, the main vine trunk is trained at a slant, which makes it easy to lay down the vines for burying. This blending of approaches is also demonstrated in the management of fungal diseases. Grapevine white rot (Coniella diplodiella), which occurs during wet growing seasons, is almost exclusive to China. It can be controlled by careful canopy management, and in some areas customized terraced vineyards have been built to aid drainage.
The wine market in China can be confusing but is easier to understand when keeping in mind that wine is not part of the mainstream drinking culture in China. Wine is still totally unfamiliar to most people in China.
Yet China remains a promising wine market for cultural reasons. Gift giving is an essential social behavior in China, and wine can be a perfect gift in many social and festive situations. Almost all wine import and trading companies in China experience their highest wine sales during major holidays, such as the Chinese New Year and the Mid-Autumn Festival. This has two important implications. First, it is almost impossible to obtain reliable data on wine consumption in China, as there is no way to determine how many wines were purchased for gift giving versus consumption—some of the wines given as gifts might not be consumed. Second, the business of original equipment manufacturer (OEM), or purchasing bulk wine from abroad and then bottling it with customized packaging in China, has been growing rapidly in the past decade, as the labeling and packaging can be easily adapted for gift giving. For example, a successful company that specializes in OEM had as its best-selling product in 2021 a wine labeled with a cartoon figure of an ox to represent the beginning of the Year of the Ox, and the wine was in fact sourced from southern France.
Of course, the Chinese do consume a lot of alcoholic beverages, but the main type of alcohol consumed (and gifted) is baijiu (白酒), named the national drink by the government. Although the volume of wine consumed in China might never surpass that of baijiu (or other types of spirits or beer), the consumption of quality wine has surged in recent years. Younger Chinese people, particularly those in their late 20s to 50s, with higher-level education or experience living abroad, have incorporated wine into their social lives. In what are known as first-tier (e.g., Beijing, Shanghai) or second-tier cities (e.g., Chengdu, Suzhou), which have advanced social and economic development, people may be more exposed to international trends, and some have become serious wine consumers. As a result, an increasing number of restaurants and bars feature a wider range of wines. It is no longer surprising to find wine bars featuring natural wines and high-end restaurants with sought-after grand cru Burgundies. Moreover, because of the thirst for education and certification in Chinese culture, some wine consumers’ wine knowledge and tasting skills are more advanced than those of industry professionals. The population of these sophisticated wine consumers is tiny. According to 2021 data, the average annual income per capita in China is a bit more than US$5,000. There is still an extreme disparity between the rich and the poor. Even so, the existing wine consumers are influential and growing in number.
At the essence of Chinese culture is the concept of guanxi (关系), which means personal trust and relationship. This concept is closely tied to both the gift-giving and social-drinking aspects of Chinese culture. It also impacts the sale of wine. China’s wine trade system does not have tiers. For example, an importer can be a distributor and a retailer at the same time. A business can sell alcoholic beverages to anyone if it has an alcohol trading license. Such a mixed trade structure may sound odd, but it offers flexibility and helps establish a closer relationship with customers.
China has many excellent wines to offer, and the industry continues to develop and evolve. Despite the challenging times, the relationships between China and major wine-producing countries have great potential. Understanding and respecting other cultures is a key way for the world of wine to pursue a brighter future.
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