Wine Wine is an alcoholic drink typically made from fermented grapes. Yeast consumes the sugar in the grapes and converts it to ethanol and carbon dioxide, releasing heat in the process. Different varieties of grapes and strains of yeasts are m ...

(

Chinese Chinese can refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation ** List of ethnic groups in China, people of ...

: ''pútáojiǔ'' lit. "grape alcohol") has a long history in China. Although long overshadowed by ''

huangjiu ''Huangjiu'' (), meaning yellow wine, is a Chinese alcoholic beverage, and is most popular in the Jiangnan area. ''Huangjiu'' is brewed by mixing boiled grains including rice, glutinous rice or millet with qū as starter culture, followed by ...

'' (sometimes translated as "yellow wine") and the much stronger distilled spirit ''

baijiu ''Baijiu'' (), also known as ''shaojiu'' (/), is a colorless Chinese liquor typically coming in between 35% and 60% alcohol by volume (ABV). Each type of baijiu uses its own type of ''qū'' for fermentation to create a distinct and charact ...

'', wine consumption has grown dramatically since the economic reforms of the 1980s. China is now numbered among the top ten global markets for wine. Ties with French producers are especially strong, and Ningxia wines have received international recognition.

History

ForeignerWithWineskin-Earthenware-TangDynasty-ROM-May8-08

Use of wild grapes in production of alcoholic beverages has been attested at the Jiahu archaeological site (c. 7000 BC).
Prehistoric China - The Wonders That Were Jiahu The World’s Earliest Fermented Beverage. Professor Patrick McGovern the Scientific Director of the Biomolecular Archaeology Project for Cuisine, Fermented Beverages, and Health at the University of Pennsylvania Museum in Philadelphia. Retrieved on 3 January 2017. High quality wine called ''qióng jiāng yù yè'' ( zh, c=瓊漿玉液) is mentioned in the ''

Complete Tang Poems (''Complete Tang Poems'') is the largest collection of Tang poetry, containing some 49,000 lyric poems by more than twenty-two hundred poets. In 1705, it was commissioned at the direction of the Qing dynasty Kangxi Emperor and published under ...

'' ''(Quan Tangshi)'', an 18th-century collection of around 50,000 poems compiled during the reign of Emperor Kangxi. The phrase, which translates literally to "jade-like wine", but has an idiomatic meaning along the lines of "wonderful wine". In 1995, a joint Sino-USA

archaeology Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landsca ...

team including archaeologists from the Archeology Research Institute of

Shandong University Shandong University (, abbreviated as Shanda, , English abbreviation SDU) is a public research comprehensive university in Jinan, Shandong with one campus in Weihai, Shandong and one campus in Qingdao, Shandong and is supported directly by ...

and American archaeologists under the leadership of Professor Fang Hui investigated the two archaeological sites 20 km to the northeast of

Rizhao Rizhao (), alternatively romanized as Jihchao, is a prefecture-level city in southeastern Shandong province, China. It is situated on the coastline along the Yellow Sea, and features a major seaport. It borders Qingdao to the northeast, Weifang t ...

, and discovered the remnants of a variety of alcoholic beverages including

grape wine Wine is an alcoholic drink typically made from fermented grapes. Yeast consumes the sugar in the grapes and converts it to ethanol and carbon dioxide, releasing heat in the process. Different varieties of grapes and strains of yeasts are m ...

, rice wine, mead, and several mixed beverages of these wines. Out of more than two hundred ceramic pots discovered at the sites, seven were specifically used for grape wine. Remnants of grape seeds were also discovered.History of Chinese wine (in Chinese)
If grape wine consumption was once present in

Bronze Age The Bronze Age is a historic period, lasting approximately from 3300 BC to 1200 BC, characterized by the use of bronze, the presence of writing in some areas, and other early features of urban civilization. The Bronze Age is the second prin ...

China, however, it was replaced by consumption of a range of alcoholic beverages made from sorghum, millet,

rice Rice is the seed of the grass species '' Oryza sativa'' (Asian rice) or less commonly ''Oryza glaberrima'' (African rice). The name wild rice is usually used for species of the genera '' Zizania'' and '' Porteresia'', both wild and domesticat ...

, and fruits such as

lychee Lychee (US: ; UK: ; ''Litchi chinensis''; ) is a monotypic taxon and the sole member in the genus ''Litchi'' in the soapberry family, ''Sapindaceae''. It is a tropical tree native to Southeast and Southwest China (the Guangdong, Fujian, Yun ...

or Asian plum. In the 130s and 120s BC, a Chinese imperial envoy of the

Han dynasty The Han dynasty (, ; ) was an imperial dynasty of China (202 BC – 9 AD, 25–220 AD), established by Liu Bang (Emperor Gao) and ruled by the House of Liu. The dynasty was preceded by the short-lived Qin dynasty (221–207 BC) and a warr ...

(206 BC – 220 AD) named

Zhang Qian Zhang Qian (; died c. 114) was a Chinese official and diplomat who served as an imperial envoy to the world outside of China in the late 2nd century BC during the Han dynasty. He was one of the first official diplomats to bring back valuable inf ...

opened diplomatic relations with several

Central Asia Central Asia, also known as Middle Asia, is a subregion, region of Asia that stretches from the Caspian Sea in the west to western China and Mongolia in the east, and from Afghanistan and Iran in the south to Russia in the north. It includes t ...

n kingdoms, some of which produced grape wine. By the end of the second century BC, Han envoys had brought grape seeds from the wine-loving kingdom of

Dayuan Dayuan (or Tayuan; ; Middle Chinese ''dâiC-jwɐn'' < LHC: ''dɑh-ʔyɑn'') is the Chinese

( Ferghana in modern

Uzbekistan Uzbekistan (, ; uz, Ozbekiston, italic=yes / , ; russian: Узбекистан), officially the Republic of Uzbekistan ( uz, Ozbekiston Respublikasi, italic=yes / ; russian: Республика Узбекистан), is a doubly landlocked co ...

) back to China and had them planted on imperial lands near the capital Chang'an (near modern-day

Xi'an Xi'an ( , ; ; Chinese: ), frequently spelled as Xian and also known by other names, is the capital of Shaanxi Province. A sub-provincial city on the Guanzhong Plain, the city is the third most populous city in Western China, after Chongqi ...

Shaanxi Shaanxi (alternatively Shensi, see § Name) is a landlocked province of China. Officially part of Northwest China, it borders the province-level divisions of Shanxi (NE, E), Henan (E), Hubei (SE), Chongqing (S), Sichuan (SW), Gansu (W), N ...

province). The '' Shennong Bencao Jing'', a work on '' materia medica'' compiled in the late Han, states that grapes could be used to produce wine. In the

Three Kingdoms The Three Kingdoms () from 220 to 280 AD was the tripartite division of China among the dynastic states of Cao Wei, Shu Han, and Eastern Wu. The Three Kingdoms period was preceded by the Eastern Han dynasty and was followed by the West ...

era (220–280 AD), Wei emperor

Cao Pi Cao Pi () ( – 29 June 226), courtesy name Zihuan, was the first emperor of the state of Cao Wei in the Three Kingdoms period of China. He was the second son of Cao Cao, a warlord who lived in the late Eastern Han dynasty, but the eldest ...

noted that grape wine "is sweeter than the wine made rom cerealsusing ferments and sprouted grain. One recovers from it more easily when one has taken too much." Grapes continued to be grown in the following centuries, notably in the northwestern region of Gansu, but were not used to produce wine on a large scale. Wine thus remained an exotic product known by few people. Not until the

Tang dynasty The Tang dynasty (, ; zh, t= ), or Tang Empire, was an imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 618 to 907 AD, with an interregnum between 690 and 705. It was preceded by the Sui dynasty and followed by the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdom ...

(618–907) did the consumption of grape wines become more common. After the Tang conquest of Gaochang – an oasis state on the Silk Road located near

Turfan Turpan (also known as Turfan or Tulufan, , ug, تۇرپان) is a prefecture-level city located in the east of the autonomous region of Xinjiang, China. It has an area of and a population of 632,000 (2015). Geonyms The original name of the cit ...

in modern

Xinjiang Xinjiang, SASM/GNC: ''Xinjang''; zh, c=, p=Xīnjiāng; formerly romanized as Sinkiang (, ), officially the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region (XUAR), is an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China (PRC), located in the northwest ...

– in 641, the Chinese obtained the seeds of an elongated grape called "mare teat" (''maru'' ) and learned from Gaochang a "method of wine making" (''jiu fa'' ). Several Tang poets versified on grape wine, celebrating wine from the "

Western Regions The Western Regions or Xiyu (Hsi-yü; ) was a historical name specified in the Chinese chronicles between the 3rd century BC to the 8th century AD that referred to the regions west of Yumen Pass, most often Central Asia or sometimes more sp ...

" – that from Liangzhou was particularly noted – or from Taiyuan in Shanxi, the latter of which produced wine made from the "mare teat" grape. Meng Shen's 孟詵 ''Materia Dietetica'' (''Shiliao Bencao'' 食療本草) and the government-sponsored ''Newly Compiled Materia Medica'' (''Xinxiu bencao'' 新修本草; 652) record that Tang people produced naturally fermented wine. China's "first modern

winery A winery is a building or property that produces wine, or a business involved in the production of wine, such as a wine company. Some wine companies own many wineries. Besides wine making equipment, larger wineries may also feature warehouses, ...

" Changyu was founded in 1892 in Shandong province near the

treaty port Treaty ports (; ja, 条約港) were the port cities in China and Japan that were opened to foreign trade mainly by the unequal treaties forced upon them by Western powers, as well as cities in Korea opened up similarly by the Japanese Empire. ...

of Chefoo (now called

Yantai Yantai, formerly known as Chefoo, is a coastal prefecture-level city on the Shandong Peninsula in northeastern Shandong province of People's Republic of China. Lying on the southern coast of the Bohai Strait, Yantai borders Qingdao on the ...

) by the overseas Chinese entrepreneur Zhang Bishi.

Production

National trends

French wine was the first foreign wine imported into China. In 1980, at the beginning of

Chinese economic reform The Chinese economic reform or reform and opening-up (), known in the West as the opening of China, is the program of economic reforms termed " Socialism with Chinese characteristics" and " socialist market economy" in the People's Republic of ...

Rémy Martin Rémy Martin () is a French firm that primarily produces and sells cognac. Founded in 1724 and based in the commune of Cognac, it is among the oldest cognac producers still in existence. and one of the "big four" cognac houses (along with Henne ...

ventured into China to set up the first joint-venture enterprise in

Tianjin Tianjin (; ; Mandarin: ), alternately romanized as Tientsin (), is a municipality and a coastal metropolis in Northern China on the shore of the Bohai Sea. It is one of the nine national central cities in Mainland China, with a total popu ...

: the Dynasty (Wang Chao, 王朝) Wine Ltd., which was also the second joint-venture enterprise in China. Over the years, the company developed over 90 brands of alcoholic beverages, and its products won numerous awards both domestically and abroad. However, most of its products were exported abroad in the first two decades due to the low income of the local population, and it was not until after the year 2000 when the economic boom finally provided the domestic population with sufficient

disposable income Disposable income is total personal income minus current income taxes. In national accounts definitions, personal income minus personal current taxes equals disposable personal income. Subtracting personal outlays (which includes the major ...

to support the domestic market; this relatively recent occurrence coincided with the increased popularity of French wine in China. Other companies, including China Great Wall Wine Co., Ltd, Suntime and Changyu, have also risen in prominence, and by 2005, 90% of grape wine produced was consumed locally.Wine production in China - wines-info
Also, as globalization has brought China onto the international economic scene, so too has its winemaking industry come onto the international wine scene. China has a long tradition of the fermentation and distillation of Chinese wine, including all alcoholic beverages and not necessarily grape wine, but is one of the most recent participants in the

globalization of wine Globalization, or globalisation (Commonwealth English; see spelling differences), is the process of interaction and integration among people, companies, and governments worldwide. The term ''globalization'' first appeared in the early 20t ...

that started years ago in Paris, when several countries such as Canada realized that they may be able to produce wines as good as most

French wine French wine is produced all throughout France, in quantities between 50 and 60 million hectolitres per year, or 7–8 billion bottles. France is one of the largest wine producers in the world, along with Italian, Spanish, and Amer ...

. Quite recently, Chinese grape wine has begun appearing on shelves in California and in Western Canada. While some critics have treated these wines with the same type of disregard with which Chilean and Australian wines were once treated, others have recognized a new frontier with the potential to yield some interesting finds. Others have simply taken notice that China is producing drinkable table wines comparable to wines from other countries. Among the latest developments is the production of

organic wine Organic wine is wine made from grapes grown in accordance with the principles of organic farming, which excludes the use of artificial chemical fertilizers, pesticides, fungicides, and herbicides. The consumption of organic wine grew at ...

in Inner Mongolia. As of 2012, a small number of large companies, such as Changyu Pioneer Wine, China Great Wall Wine Co., Ltd. and the Dynasty Wine Ltd., dominate domestic production. The total production of wine in 2004 was 370 thousand tons, a 15% increase from the previous year. The total market grew 58% between 1996 and 2001, and 68% between 2001 and 2006.Chinese Wine Marketing Conference Highlights Advantages & Issues in China's Wine Industry - wines-info
In 2008, wine merchant Berry Brothers and Rudd predicted that within 50 years the quality of Chinese wine will rival that of

Bordeaux Bordeaux ( , ; Gascon oc, Bordèu ; eu, Bordele; it, Bordò; es, Burdeos) is a port city on the river Garonne in the Gironde department, Southwestern France. It is the capital of the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region, as well as the prefect ...

Wine-producing regions

Notable wine-producing regions include

Beijing } Beijing ( ; ; ), alternatively romanized as Peking ( ), is the capital of the People's Republic of China. It is the center of power and development of the country. Beijing is the world's most populous national capital city, with over 21 ...

Zhangjiakou Zhangjiakou (; ; ) also known as Kalgan and by several other names, is a prefecture-level city in northwestern Hebei province in Northern China, bordering Beijing to the southeast, Inner Mongolia to the north and west, and Shanxi to the south ...

Hebei Hebei or , (; alternately Hopeh) is a northern province of China. Hebei is China's sixth most populous province, with over 75 million people. Shijiazhuang is the capital city. The province is 96% Han Chinese, 3% Manchu, 0.8% Hui, and 0 ...

Yibin Yibin (; Sichuanese Pinyin: nyi2bin1; Sichuanese pronunciation: ) is a prefecture-level city in the southeastern part of Sichuan province, China, located at the junction of the Min and Yangtze Rivers. Its population was 4,588,804 inhabitants, a ...

Sichuan Sichuan (; zh, c=, labels=no, ; zh, p=Sìchuān; alternatively romanized as Szechuan or Szechwan; formerly also referred to as "West China" or "Western China" by Protestant missions) is a province in Southwest China occupying most of the ...

Tonghua Tonghua () is a prefecture-level city in the south of Jilin province, People's Republic of China. It borders North Korea's Chagang Province to the south and southeast, Baishan to the east, Jilin City to the north, Liaoyuan to the northwest, and ...

Jilin Jilin (; alternately romanized as Kirin or Chilin) is one of the three provinces of Northeast China. Its capital and largest city is Changchun. Jilin borders North Korea ( Rasŏn, North Hamgyong, Ryanggang and Chagang) and Russia (Prim ...

, Taiyuan in Shanxi, and

Ningxia Ningxia (,; , ; alternately romanized as Ninghsia), officially the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region (NHAR), is an autonomous region in the northwest of the People's Republic of China. Formerly a province, Ningxia was incorporated into Gansu in 1 ...

. The largest producing region is Yantai-Penglai; with over 140 wineries, it produces 40% of China's wine.

Xinjiang

China's

Xinjiang Autonomous Region Xinjiang, SASM/GNC: ''Xinjang''; zh, c=, p=Xīnjiāng; formerly romanized as Sinkiang (, ), officially the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region (XUAR), is an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China (PRC), located in the northwest ...

have an ancient history of viticulture going back to around the 4th Century BC, when

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

settlers brought the vine and more advanced irrigation techniques. However new archeological evidence has shown this to be untrue, because China produced grape wine, rice wine, mead (honey wine) 9000 years ago (7000 BC). The area around

was, and still is, particularly noted for its grape production, and production of grape wines is mentioned in the historical record as well; Marco Polo mentioned that '' Carachoco'' (the name he used for Turfan) produced fine grape wines. The modern wine industry is largely patterned after French methods with a concentration on varieties like Cabernet. However, the Uighur traditional technique has survived especially in counties surrounding Kashgar. The Uighur home-made wine generally called " museles" (from Arabic "المثلث ", meaning "the triangle") is still being brewed by households in many villages. Unlike wines west of Xinjiang, the brewing of museles requires crushing of local varieties of grapes by hand, then strained using the Uighur

atlas silk Etles or ''Etles silk'' (, ) is a type of silk ikat ''Ikat'' (in Indonesian languages means "bind") is a dyeing technique originating from Indonesia used to pattern textiles that employs resist dyeing on the yarns prior to dyeing and weavi ...

, then boiled with amount of water equal to the juice and desired portion of sugar, until the volume of the mixture is down to the original volume of the juice, then stored in clay urns together with folk recipes varying by localities---in some counties, traditional Uighur herbal medicines, and goji, mulberries, sea-buckthorn, cloves, etc. in others, and even raw and unfeathered pheasants or poussin in others. The brew usually takes more than a month to accomplish. It is then un-urned, filtered and bottled to be stored for long periods. In some villages, the ritual of communally gathering a mixture of folk museles brews in a large village urn marks the occasion following the harvest and process of grapes. Museles is now being standardized by the wine producing industry in China and marketed under the brand-name of Merceles.

Ningxia

In September 2011,

winery Helan Qingxue won the Decanter World Wine Award's Red Bordeaux Varietal Over £10 International Trophy for its 2009 Jiabeilan, a Cabernet sauvignon blend. This win was widely considered an upset, with some wine experts even questioning the veracity of origin of the wine. On 14 December 2011 in

, in a competition tagged "Bordeaux against Ningxia", experts from China and France blind-tasted five wines from each region. Four out of five of the top wines were from Ningxia.

Emma Gao Emma Gao is a Chinese oenologist, who is the chief winemaker at Silver Heights winery, one of China's most prestigious vineyards. Biography Born in China, Gao moved to France in 1999, aged 21, to study oenology at the University of Bordeaux, w ...

of Silver Heights Vineyard is one of the top winemakers in the region, her first vintage was praised by Chinese and international winemakers, and two of her red wines are among the best known produced in China.

Shanxi

In the "Bordeaux against Ningxia" wine challenge held in Beijing in October 2011, Grace Vineyard's 2009 Chairman's Reserve, a 100% Cabernet Sauvignon, was voted best.

Consumption

Market trends

China is among the top ten wine markets in the world. According to a study by Vinexpo and International Wine and Spirits Research (IWSR), China was the world's fifth-largest consumer of wine (both domestic and imported) in 2011. A study by the same organizations revealed in 2014 estimates that 2.17 billion bottles of wine were consumed in China in 2013, keeping China in fifth place. Because Chinese mostly drink red wine, China is now the world's largest market for red wine. China's consumption of red wine has grown by 136% since 2008, whereas it has declined by 18% in France, the second-largest consumer. The United States remains the largest market for all types of wine (red, white, rosé, and sparkling), with total sales of approximately 4 billion bottles, slightly ahead of France and followed by Italy and the United Kingdom. The Chinese wine market has experienced a 20% annualized growth rate between 2006 and 2011, and is forecast to grow by another 54% by 2015. In 2009,

Sotheby's Sotheby's () is a British-founded American multinational corporation with headquarters in New York City. It is one of the world's largest brokers of fine and decorative art, jewellery, and collectibles. It has 80 locations in 40 countries, an ...

reported that Hong Kong had become the world's largest market for fine wines at auction, surpassing previous leaders

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

, and

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

Products and availability

Most medium to large restaurants, regardless of the fare, sell wine by the bottle, usually only red. Generally, only high-end restaurants serve wine by the glass. Wine sold by the bottle is also available at large KTV establishments, and major hotels. Since around 2008, many small convenience stores have begun to carry a small selection of wines, with specialty wine shops emerging in cities throughout the country. These specialize in both foreign and domestic brands. Meanwhile, major supermarkets have steadily increased their selection, from several domestic brands, to a wide variety of wines from around the world. In addition, plenty varieties of wines are also available through online shops and platforms. Among these are sweetened, flavoured wines. These are made of a mixture of grape wine and a sweetened, flavoured drink similar to

Kool-aid Kool-Aid is an American brand of flavored drink mix owned by Kraft Heinz based in Chicago, Illinois. The powder form was created by Edwin Perkins in 1927 based upon a liquid concentrate called Fruit Smack. History Kool-Aid was invented by ...

. These ''wines'' have similar labels to genuine wines, have an alcohol content of approximately 6%, and are much lower in price.

Demographics and preferences

A survey conducted with 1,440 respondents reveals that Chinese prefer red wine to white wine. 94% of the respondents consumed red wine, while only 35% of them drank white wine. This trend is, however, contrasting when measured among younger generations. Chinese young people prefer white to red wine and they consider the latter traditional and outdated. Statistics show that the main market for white wine is among females, who prefer it over

beer Beer is one of the oldest and the most widely consumed type of alcoholic drink in the world, and the third most popular drink overall after water and tea. It is produced by the brewing and fermentation of starches, mainly derived from ce ...

, still the main alcoholic beverage for most males; red wine has become a symbol of the elite and rich and is usually used as a

table wine Table wine (rarely abbreviated TW) is a wine term with two different meanings: a style of wine and a quality level within wine classification. In the United States, the term primarily designates a wine style: an ordinary wine which is not fortifi ...

. In 2005, 80% of vineyards produce red wine and 20% of vineyards produce

white wine White wine is a wine that is fermented without skin contact. The colour can be straw-yellow, yellow-green, or yellow-gold. It is produced by the alcoholic fermentation of the non-coloured pulp of grapes, which may have a skin of any colour. ...

, while 90% of wine consumed as of 2007 is red wine.

Method of consumption

Both red and white wines are commonly served chilled. The wine may be poured into ordinary wine glasses in tiny amounts, or very small, glass ''baijiu'' glasses. When served at a table with more than two people, similar to the style of drinking ''baijiu'', it is typically consumed during a group toast, and often with the entire glass being finished at once. This is particularly true when served during restaurant meals.

References

Notes

Works cited

* * * * * * (paperback). *

External links

*http://www.ice.gov.it/paesi/asia/cina/upload/174/Chinese%20wine%20report%202010.pdf {{Authority control