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 28, 2009
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...
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 offerAll 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!!
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
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!!
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 Merlotalso 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!!
Thursday, November 19, 2009
China and expansion
Did I already mention that China is a big place? With a whole lotta people in it?
The country is opening up in a lot of ways -social, economic, science, and there is a growing group of people that can afford wine, but they haven't necessarily had it before. There are also a relatively high number of rich, who can afford very expensive (and usually French) wine, but of most interest to the domestic wine industry are those that are doing well, but not well enough to be called rich. You know, like the middle-class.
They know something about wine, probably on the order of, that it's something that rich people and foreigners drink, and that piques their interest enough to try it, or they might want to emulate the rich to climb the social ladder (what silly games we people play sometimes! :-)
So even though a small percent of people with the income buy wine, and only a fraction of those buy wine very often, because the absolute numbers are so big, it equates to a heap of wine being consumed domestically.
So, I've mentioned what they're doing on the vineyard side of things - planting large areas of grapes, but to accommodate those grapes, you need wineries to process them and make them into wine!
So I visited a few wineries there as well. The largest and most impressive was a brand new facility built by Chang Yu to service the large area of vineyards they had planted in the Yinchuan area. The finishing touches on the place were being done when we went through, and it was impressive to see a 20,000 tonne winery being put up, just like that!
Red wine tanks lined up all in a row.
Row upon row of tanks, one section devoted to whites, and the rest to reds (more reds than whites are made, by a large margin). The tanks for the latter had motorised stirrers built into the bottom to aid with extraction, and all had a chute by the door that the must could be pushed out and onto a conveyor which augers the skins and seeds to the presses.
The auger system they put in place to ferry the red must to the presses after fermentation. Keeping this clean will be a challenge!
Sorry, no two-tonne open-top fermenters here!!
While I've seen bigger wineries, I haven't seen one of this size going into a completely new viticultural region. Obviously, the company has big plans for wine from there!
The new Chang Yu Visitors Centre in Yinchuan -this building is dwarfed by the winery! When they do things, they do them big!
The country is opening up in a lot of ways -social, economic, science, and there is a growing group of people that can afford wine, but they haven't necessarily had it before. There are also a relatively high number of rich, who can afford very expensive (and usually French) wine, but of most interest to the domestic wine industry are those that are doing well, but not well enough to be called rich. You know, like the middle-class.
They know something about wine, probably on the order of, that it's something that rich people and foreigners drink, and that piques their interest enough to try it, or they might want to emulate the rich to climb the social ladder (what silly games we people play sometimes! :-)
So even though a small percent of people with the income buy wine, and only a fraction of those buy wine very often, because the absolute numbers are so big, it equates to a heap of wine being consumed domestically.
So, I've mentioned what they're doing on the vineyard side of things - planting large areas of grapes, but to accommodate those grapes, you need wineries to process them and make them into wine!
So I visited a few wineries there as well. The largest and most impressive was a brand new facility built by Chang Yu to service the large area of vineyards they had planted in the Yinchuan area. The finishing touches on the place were being done when we went through, and it was impressive to see a 20,000 tonne winery being put up, just like that!
Red wine tanks lined up all in a row.
The auger system they put in place to ferry the red must to the presses after fermentation. Keeping this clean will be a challenge!Sorry, no two-tonne open-top fermenters here!!
While I've seen bigger wineries, I haven't seen one of this size going into a completely new viticultural region. Obviously, the company has big plans for wine from there!
The new Chang Yu Visitors Centre in Yinchuan -this building is dwarfed by the winery! When they do things, they do them big!Tuesday, November 10, 2009
China -viticulture to the west
In this installment, I'm going to describe a few things that I saw in the Ningxia province, near its capital city, Yinchuan.
Yinchuan is known as a rural city, it having a population of "only" around one million people. It is an extremely spread out city, with incredibly straight roads that go long distances. One road runs for 40km through the city and is dead straight all the way!
The areas near Yinchuan are viticulture growth areas, as the climate there is thought to be well suited to wine production. The history goes back a bit, with a 1984 wine being recognised as the first white wine made in Ningxia. There are some good reasons to have grapes growing here - supposedly it has the second highest number of sunshine hours per year, second only to Tibet, which is probably a bit too harsh of an area! However, the same drawback are here - it's so cold and dry during the winter that the vines must be buried each autumn. A major headache, even in this land of plentiful labour.
Rainfall is only 200mm per year, but it can occur pretty much all at once! The wettest months on average are July through December, so right during the grape ripening season!
The soils are very sandy, so phylloxera is not yet a problem (it has been found in the Shandong province and in the areas around Beijing), and thus most vines are own-rooted, propagated by cuttings taken from another vineyard (which has meant the spread of virus has been wide and far!). Soil pH can be very high before amendment - 8.9!!
The soil in a vineyard near Yinchuan - pure sand!
I was told that there are about 5000 hectares of grapes in Ningxia, and a good yield for the red varieties they like to grow is in the range of 22 tonnes per hectare, which is very high!! Although the rows are reasonably far apart, the between vine spacing is very close.
Vines in the Chateau Helan vineyard, with the Helan Mountains in the background. Vines are very closely spaced, with the vertical trunks being laid down along the row in the Autumn, before being covered with soil.
All in all, a very different area to grow grapes!!
Yinchuan is known as a rural city, it having a population of "only" around one million people. It is an extremely spread out city, with incredibly straight roads that go long distances. One road runs for 40km through the city and is dead straight all the way!
The areas near Yinchuan are viticulture growth areas, as the climate there is thought to be well suited to wine production. The history goes back a bit, with a 1984 wine being recognised as the first white wine made in Ningxia. There are some good reasons to have grapes growing here - supposedly it has the second highest number of sunshine hours per year, second only to Tibet, which is probably a bit too harsh of an area! However, the same drawback are here - it's so cold and dry during the winter that the vines must be buried each autumn. A major headache, even in this land of plentiful labour.
Rainfall is only 200mm per year, but it can occur pretty much all at once! The wettest months on average are July through December, so right during the grape ripening season!
The soils are very sandy, so phylloxera is not yet a problem (it has been found in the Shandong province and in the areas around Beijing), and thus most vines are own-rooted, propagated by cuttings taken from another vineyard (which has meant the spread of virus has been wide and far!). Soil pH can be very high before amendment - 8.9!!
The soil in a vineyard near Yinchuan - pure sand!I was told that there are about 5000 hectares of grapes in Ningxia, and a good yield for the red varieties they like to grow is in the range of 22 tonnes per hectare, which is very high!! Although the rows are reasonably far apart, the between vine spacing is very close.
Vines in the Chateau Helan vineyard, with the Helan Mountains in the background. Vines are very closely spaced, with the vertical trunks being laid down along the row in the Autumn, before being covered with soil.All in all, a very different area to grow grapes!!
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