Manchuela, Pays Basque and Catalunya

If you happen to be a soccer fan, in addition to those jerseys and fancy merchandises, what else can you collect? 

The answer is : WINE.

Here it is, Finca El Carril red wine from Bodega Iniesta, ran by the family of Andrés Iniesta, who is the indispensable midfielder of FC Barcelona. Bodega Iniesta is situated in Fuentealbilla, Spain, which belongs to the DO Manchuela wine region in Castille-La Manche autonomous community. It is said that the wine was bought out of curiosity and some "Love me, love my dog" state of mind..., however, it is not disappointing at all! 

With Tempranillo and Petit Verdot as grape varieties, the wine has a clear and quite intense ruby color, smells like a bouquet of flowers with some hints of spice.

Mouth: Off dry with medium-full bodied, round tannins, spicy with flavours of blackberry and some ripe fruit, slight licorice with quite long finish. The wine tastes excellent with cheese and cured ham! The cured ham was bought from a market in Bayonne, which is very chewy because of its thickness.

 

And some Catalunya sausages! While the sweetness of meat accompanied by the wine and the aroma spreads in the mouth, it's just like a happy symphony flowing through our taste buds...

Since someone between us is a huge fan of Barça, we would take this Castille-La Manche/Catalunya wine food pairing as an homage to Andrés Iniesta and his Blaugrana team, for so many wonderful football games,  true sportsmanship and of course, such a beautiful wine. Cheers! Santé!

"Pinot Noir Challenge" in Hong Kong

January 15, 2013, Hong Kong wine industry has witnessed a moment of German Pinot Noir dominate the Asia. The German Wine Institute (Deutsches weininstitut) selected HongKong as the place of “Pinot Noir Challenge”, the German Wine Institute invited famous wine critics from China, Japan, Singapore and Hong Kong for giving scores in this “ Pinot Noir Challenge”.

After an intense review and debate, critics selected the first ten of 40 Pinot Noir from all over the world .The most surprising thing is the name of the first ten Pinot Noir eight are from Germany and the head five are arranged by the German, it is visible that German Pinot Noir is very suitable for Asian tastes!

Global warming
In fact, the phenomenon of global warming is quietly changing the many wine-producing endemic environment, in the past four decades, Germany's average temperature increase 1.4 ° C, this phenomenon makes Germany to become a remarkable wine producing country!

Emerging force
Undoubtedly the most famous Pinot Noir origin is Burgundy addition to Burgundy, a lot of people are looking for alternative, New World representative is California and Oregon ,from the latest information, German Pinot Noir production is the third in the world, become the world only emerging power to challenge Burgundy royal status!

After this challenge, the Asian market is aware of the strength of German Pinot Noir who is emerging in this field. People should pay close attention to the German Pinot Noir.

Blind tasting event @ Chateau du Grand Moueys

40 minutes away from downtown Bordeaux, the Chateau du Grand Moueys lies close to a small town named Capian.

Expected to be one of the most beautiful chateau from the right bank, The Chateau du Grand Moueys (AOC Cote-de-Bordeaux) was acquired in February 2012 by a Chinese spirits company - NINGXIAHONG.

This Saturday(12th Jan 2013), we attended the blind tasting event organized by Chateaux du Grand Moueys' International Marketing Manager - Mr. Chen Zihao(right in picture).

Attended by 15 Chinese wine professionals from Bordeaux, here we went through a blind tasting of 8 wines from Loire region. WSET level 3 tasting process was used during the tasting, and we aimed to develop together all different characteristics of wines from Val de Loire region.

"Such event is expected to be organized once every two weeks, each time a particular wine producing region will be chosen." Said Mr Chen, "Our purpose is to build for all Chinese wine professionals lived in Bordeaux a platform where they could gather and share their professional knowledge and information in wine industry, a platform which never exist before."

Copyright reserved by NINGXIAHONG Group, China.

Introduction of the wine region of Spain

Spain is the largest country of grapes planting in the world , the grape variety is diverse. Red wine is major, also excellent white wine and sparkling wine CAVA, of course, there is the famous sherry. Spain's wine production is rand only second to Italy and France. Almost all of the Spain produced wine, mainly in the Rioja area, Pini diss, multi-Luo River You Beila Galicia, Jieci Sigmund Troy area, which Rioja, Anderson Lucia, Catalonia are the most famous areas. Near the capital, Madrid,the wines of La Mancha local streets,accounting for almost half of all production of Spain. The following are presentations of the main producing areas of Spain specialty wine.

1. Galicia 

Southwest of Galicia (Galicia), which is one of the most outstanding places of white wine dry in Spain, the general quality of white wine dry with a high level, which area of Spain is the most difficult to produce high-quality white wine dry areas, because of the local climate is cool and moist, white wine dry rich in fresh fruit aroma, acidity .

2. Castilla Y-Leon

Castilla Y Leon is located in the Duero River, the areas of red wine, white wine and rose wine . The best is Ribera del Duero, the red wine who close to the Duero River, is said to be the top red wine in the whole Spain, the famous and expensive Vega Sicilia winery is in this area. Tempranillo wine of this producing area is really exciting, strong tannins, fruity.

3. Andalucia

Andalucia in the famous producing area of sherry , produced brandy and the unique flavor of Spain sherry sweet and not sweet .

4. Catalunya

Catalunya is one of the main producing areas of the Spanish wine, in Hong Needles, Kerst de Garza Gray, Areia and Bailey Lata, the four regions produced the excellent wine ,these wine producing regions of the name “cellar”. Andalusia, Aragon, the East Coast and other regions are also produced delicate taste of wine.

A Poem of Wine

Although recently the weather was not quite pleasant in Bordeaux, last night there was still a moment where the moonlight was bright and clear that you could even see your shadow on the moonlit floor. What a peaceful image! It was reminiscent of an ancient Chinese poem <Libation of Solitary Under the Moonlight>.

So here comes the themes of the week: Moonlight, shadow and wine.

What we are going to "taste" now is a poem about wine, wrote by a Chinese poet of Tang Dynasty, Li Bai (701-762). The scene was carefully designed yet so natural, with a fascinating environment and atmosphere, you can probably enjoy it even if there is quite a solitude between the lines…

Li Bai has strong political ambitions while contempt for wealth and rank. As an idealist, he often dissatisfied with reality. However, what a great poet does with a frustrated career and disillusion with life, is to drinks his sorrows away and chants verse as a way of self-distraction. 

<Libation of Solitary Under the Moonlight>

Among the flowers there is a jug of wine, I drink alone without a friend.

By raising the cup, I invite the bright moon;

Here is my shadow reflected before me, now we are three.

The moon, however, knows nothing about drinking.

And the shadow can only follow me in vain.

Nevertheless, I still regard them as partners for the nonce.

By the joy of frolic, let's celebrate the good time of spring night!

When I sing, the moon lingers around me;

When I dance, my deformed shadow is wandering.

We share the joy as we are sober;

While getting tipsy we separated from one another. 

Henceforward, I would like to go together with the moon;

Roaming on the distant Milky Way.

Well, if you happen to have to spend your Christmas and New Year holidays alone, this one is for you. Not the sad and solitary part, but the romantic imagination accompanied by wine. Also, we do believe the translation can always be improved, so any comments would be appreciated and you are welcome to share your thoughts with us!

An interesting reading experience

Hey, guys Merry CHRISTMAS !! 
Today we would like to change our blog subject from wine news or wine tasting to some interesting comic books about wine.

First of all, I have some questions for you: Have you ever felt a little bit hard to remember those names of the grape varieties, wine regions or been confused by the names of Chateaux? If the answer is “yes”, then I’ve got some idea of reading which will probably make it easier for you.

So here are my recommended reading list: A manga “The Drops of God” and a comic book named “The Chateaux of Bordeaux”.

By reading these two interesting (series of) books, you will not be boring or confused about those wine-related terms or names any more!

Now let me introduce a little bit of them...

The manga The Drops of God is about Kanzaki Shizuku, (son of Mr. Yutaka Kanzaki, who was a world-famous wine critic but has recently passed away) who is having an intense competition with Issei Tomine (the foster son of Kanzaki, also a renowned young wine critic). They should find out 13 wines (twelve Apostles and Drops of God that Kanzaki has described in his will) in order to win over the right of inheritance.

Why this book ? Because this book describe lots of details of the famous wine regions and chateaux like wine prices,grape varieties and also food matching!
OK!! Don’t hesitate to GET TO BUY ONE “The drops of god” you wanna get one more !!

Another on is Chateaux Bordeaux by Eric Corbeyran and Sébastien Portet (a.k.a. Espé). It is a very interesting comic book which introduce lots of the Chateaux of Bordeaux.

Wine, as the author described, they can not only talk and shout, but sometimes they can also whisper in your ear!I think that is one of the reasons why we are so addicted to the wine, because actually they are alive.If you are interested in the Bordeaux wine, why not chose this book for improving your wine knowledge? 

OK guys, TAKE ACTION QUICKLY & HAPPY READING!

Let's talk about how to do wine business in China.

Today, I’m not gonna talk about wine tasting techniques in general, but to give you some ideas about how to do business in Chinese wine market. When I mention about Chinese wine market, I know some of you still believe Chinese people are sort of mixing Petrus with Coca cola. Yeah that was what they’ve done. But whether you like it or not, now China ranks as 5^th biggest wine importing country in the world with an annual growth of 30% in value. For most wine professionals, flying to Shanghai or Hong Kong is just like flying to New York or London. We even had an insight joke: The wine professionals are either in China or on their way to China. Here I’m going to give you the very general picture (based on my personal experience in China) about how to develop your business in China step by step.

When you are selling wine in China, firstly please understand why Chinese consumers drink wine, because wine is definitely not a daily drink in China. But 90% of consumers are drinking wines during special occasions. For example during holidays or parties, 94% of consumers drink wine because they believe that it is better to health compare with Chinese “Bai Jiu”. Therefore, a wine in China is considered as a healthy and social drink. In this case, those methods you are using to target European consumers would not work in China. Because they don’t care about grape variety, US oak or French oak, biodynamic or organic, they just don’t care. Simply just be social and be healthy, and give them a story to talk about during dinner and that’s it.

Who are you selling to? Not everyone in China could afford wines, because they are extremely expensive. Don’t be surprised to find a vin de pays Merlot sold at 40 euros in China, as our average salary is only 300 euros per month. Some of you may have started doing marketing research, customer surveys or segmentations or lifestyle analysis. But they are way too complicated. We say that in China there are only two kinds of consumers: Consumers who pay their bills and consumers who don’t pay their bills. For consumers who don’t pay their bills, 99% are government officials and politicians. They don’t care about taste, all they pursue is price and reputation. If you are a premium wine producer, please spell out your rarity, your heritage and your exclusiveness. And be simple, please do not tell boring history, even for wine professionals these histories are just boring. All your need to do is storytelling; give them a premium story to talk during dinner, and make sure your wine would be a good sample to contribute their self-esteem. 

But for the people who really pay their bills, they are the so-called ordinary consumers. In order to reach them you need to ask yourself a question: where do you sell your wine? More precisely, are you gonna sell on trade or off trade? The Chinese wine report said that the on trade sales and off trade sales are almost equal. That made me quite surprised when I first read it. Because I said that most wines are considered as social drinks instead of drinking alone. But why the on trade sales and off trade sales can be equal? Please don’t forget about holiday sales, because 60% of wine sale in China are generated only during two holidays: The mid-autumn day and spring festival. Well, some consumers like you and me may only buy one or two bottles to give them to friends as gifts, but the government and companies also need to give gifts to their partners and their employees etc. In this case, a bottle of wine which is healthy and fashionable, will definitely be the top of the list. And by the way, they are purchasing wine on a very large volume, actually they are the key players to drive off trade sales up high. So when you are planning to ship your containers to China, please make sure they are gonna be on those shelves before holidays.

Finally, hope this article may help you and thanks for reading.