Monday, December 28, 2009

Happy New Year!

A cop-out post, I know! However, we've been prepping for the big trip back to New Zealand, and enjoying having Christmas with my parents! So until I can get back to writing another entry, all the best for the New Year! I'll be celebrating with some nice local bubbly!

Cheers! :-)

Monday, December 21, 2009

China - the sleeping ice wine giant? (part 1)

Another chapter in the China travels series...

This time, its about something that was developed in Germany, really took off in Canada, and now it looks like China is poised to take over.

Ice wine. The luscious nectar made from frozen grapes, it is highly prized by some, and highly priced by many!!

Why is it so exclusive? To make the real stuff, the grapes need to be naturally frozen, and picked when the temperature is -8C or lower, and will stay that way until all the pressing is finished (these are Canadian rules - some other countries have their own regulations, but the Canadians seem to have the most comprehensive set, designed to ensure the integrity of their icewine (all one word, as opposed to the generic "ice wine" product)). That's pretty cold, and throw in the fact that it could be windy as well, and you're looking at a temperature of -16, easy, with the wind chill!

Wouldn't it be nice to be able to sit in a mechanical harvester and collect all those grapes into a hopper? It would be nice, but you wouldn't get many grapes that way, as by that time of the year, the cluster rachis has gotten brittle, and the berries fall off far too easily! So the grapes must be hand picked! Sometimes in the dark, when it's the coldest and to ensure that the grapes do not get above -8C. Similarly, the grape press is usually brought outside of the winery and the work done out in the cold. To make it even more difficult, extracting the juice from the grapes takes a long time, so the whole process is one big freeze-fest!

And just what is it about this procedure that results in such a luscious wine? It's a concentration effect. Pure water will start to freeze at 0C, so if you have water with something else in it, those other things won't freeze at that temperature.

So if you take a glass of juice (Kool-Aid was one of my favourites!), put it in the freezer and wait for a while - until it's partially frozen and there's quite a bit of ice in it, take it out and pour the remaining liquid into another glass. Now you have one glass that has ice in it, and another with the juice. If you actually do this, you'll note that the ice (if you wash off any remaining juice) is clear - not coloured like the juice. What you have there is pretty much pure water, which has been frozen out of the juice. If you taste the juice in the other glass, you should notice that it's a lot sweeter, and stronger tasting than the original juice - what you have done is concentrated the juice by freezing out some of the water in it.

The making of icewine uses the same principle. As the grapes freeze, ice forms inside the berry, but all the good stuff - the sugar and flavour compounds - are concentrated. So when the grapes are pressed, a concentrated sugary syrup of juice comes out, which can have twice the concentration of the original juice (the colder it is, the more concentrated the juice). This is what helps to make the wine sweet, and also have its intense aroma and flavour.

And this is why the temperature has to be so cold, and has to stay that way. If the grapes warm up, then there is not as much ice in the berries, and the juice won't have the same amount of concentration.

There aren't too many traditional grape growing areas that have sufficiently cold temperatures consistently, enough to make ice wine. As well, the temperatures can't get too cold, or the vines will freeze and die. Vitis vinifera, which is used to make the vast majority of wine in the world, can survive to around -18C if the conditions are right. So there is a relatively small window between cold enough and "*#!#%*! The vines are dead!!"

Germany was probably the first place where ice wine was made, but the conditions for good ice wine production aren't too common. The Niagara Peninsula, between Lakes Erie and Ontario in Canada is an area that seems to get appropriate conditions pretty well every year, even if they may have to wait until February before they arrive!

Those with quick minds would probably like to point out that this is all very inconvenient, so why not pick some grapes, stick them in a freezer, and press them in there - none of this mucking about in the cold, picking grapes, at least! This technique certainly works, but there is something about having those grapes hanging out there for so long before they're picked that helps to make the wine extra-special. The Cool Climate Oenology and Viticulture Institute at Brock University has done quite a bit of research into icewine production, and they are uncovering some of the factors that affect icewine quality - one of which is likely to be "hang-time" and freeze/thaw cycles.

So how does China come into this discussion? China, as I may have mentioned in passing before, is a big place. They have a huge spread of climates within the borders, and areas suitable for ice wine production are among the country's resources.

Book now for part 2 of China - the sleeping ice wine giant...

Saturday, December 12, 2009

China and the Wine City -part 2


The second full day we had in Yantai, the Wine City, we were able to visit the International Wine City, Changyu, established in 2002 (so I was told, though another source suggested that it was in September 2008). This is what I described as the Disneyland of Chinese wine, covering 100ha. Uncountable great busloads of tourists (well, Changyu counts them, and told me that 100,000 visit per year, though the other source said it was as many as 1,000,000 in the first four months that it was open!) funnel through the gates to learn about winemaking, see the spectacle of grapevines growing, taste some wine and grapes and if they come at the right time of year, partake of harvest and even a bit of grape stomping! Entry is a nominal 30RMB each (about USD4.40 or NZD6.10), but the City is used as a way to get people interested in wine, and to learn more about how to appreciate it. They employ a (Western) sommelier to help with this by offering programmes on wine appreciation and the like.

The Grape Tasting Corridor in the Wine City. Here, patrons can sample grapes, wine, and nibble on biscuits, sweets and cheese.

On site is a museum, a huge Chateau, vineyards and of course, a sales room!

The Chateau in the Wine City - a massive and impressive building, meant to spar with the best that France has to offer

All very impressive, and yet, incongruous, as this City is situated in an Yantai industrial park near the south shore of Bohai Straight, between Bohai Sea and Korea Bay, where condominiums reach towards the stars...


Picturesque vineyards surrounded by massive condos, construction cranes and industrial offices


As a viticulturist, I was shocked by the virus status of the vines, which made the vineyards look like a patchwork of red and green. It seems that there is little clean material available, and no guidelines are in place to monitor and try to keep it out of the nurseries. In fact, that would do little to help, as most of the vine material being planted is simply collected from existing vines and poked into the soil. As I've noted before, the sandy soils aren't phylloxera-friendly, so own-rooted vines won't be beleaguered by the pest.

However, vine virus status aside, looking at the International Wine City with a marketing and tourism hat on, it was a marvel. There's no doubt that China is taking the whole wine experience to heart!



Friday, December 11, 2009

Cabernet Gernischt


One of the interesting varieties that I saw in China was this little fellow: Cabernet Gernischt. It is widely grown there, so much so, in fact, that "Jiebaina" (a phonetic equivalent to "Cabernet") has becoming a synonym for Cabernet Gernischt and blends of other Cabernets, much to Chang Yu Winery's chagrin, as they have wanted to lay claim to the name (see here for more details).

Do a search on the web and not a lot useful comes up. Wikipedia as a stub, and there are various entries by outfits selling the wine that comes from China, but there is little else available - not even my hardly-ever-fails-me Super Gigantic Y2K Grapevine Glossary, by A.J. Hawkins has an entry for it!!

Most sources agree that the variety was brought to China (ChangYu lays claim to this, in particular) in the late 1800s, and that it no longer appears to be grown in Europe. The authors of the Wikipedia entry claim that it is the same variety as Cabernet franc, but I'm not convinced about this. I tasted it while in China, and think it's sufficiently different, and as well, there is some scientific evidence that Cabernet Gernischt is not the same as Cabernet Sauvignon or Cabernet franc (see the article by Jiang et al., 2007).

I was told that the non-vintage Cabernet Gernischt is ChangYu's top selling red wine, and that they make 20,000 tonnes worth of it every vintage. That's about a sixth of their present production! I can see why - it's a very pleasant wine - not as big as a Cab Sauv, but a nice accompaniment to an every-day meal. Big less dainty than a Cab franc, but with nice fruit, spice and a hint of perfume.

There is also interest in making a lower-alcohol version of the wine, with Qingdao (better known for its beer than its wine!) coming out with a 9% alcohol version (via reverse osmosis).

Is it possible that this long-lost native of Europe could make a foray back into the West? Never say never!!


Tuesday, December 8, 2009

China and the Wine City -part 1

The traditional heart of China's wine production is Yantai, a coastal city which is in the Shandong Province, southeast of Beijing. My visit to Yantai was sponsored by Chang Yu Winery, who were large sponsors of the Yantai International Wine Festival, of which the third edition was happening during our visit. As usual, everything is larger in China - even the wine bottles!

At the opening of the Wine Festival. The third incarnation was the biggest and splashiest yet!

You thought things were bigger in Texas? Try China on for size!!

The region is very proud of this international-scale event, which was launched with no small amounts of fanfare. It is aimed primarily at the trade, rather than the buying public, but there were lots of representatives of each group there.

Very little expense spared here - dancers, music, confetti
and parachute-filled cannons, smoke and loud bangs!


Of the interesting things that we saw there was a display of some wines from Central Otago, New Zealand, and also that Chang Yu has a Chateau in New Zealand, where they make the ChangYu Kely brand of wines - a Sauvignon blanc and a Merlot. The vineyard is located in the north - Kaitaia, which is northwest one of the areas first planted with vines in New Zealand, way back in the early 1800s. The winery is Kari Kari Estate, who make a range of wines, and feature one Karl Coombes as Assistant Winemaker - he did the Graduate Diploma in Viticulture and Oenology at Lincoln University in 2007! The Merlot was selling for 298RMB and the Savvie for 318RMB (at the exchange rates at the time, that equated to approximately USD44 and USD47, respectively). In New Zealand dollars, we're talking about $61 and $65, resp. per bottle! Not bad for a bottle that would retail for maybe NZD20 for the Savvie and NZD30 for the Merlot!

Bottle and packaging for ChangYu Kely Sauvignon blanc, sister to the Merlot
also sold under the brand in China.


I was pretty chuffed that the largest winery in China thought that it was worthwhile to have New Zealand wine in their portfoilio, which also favours wines from the Old World as well!!