Thirsty Dragon: China's Lust for Bordeaux and the Threat to the World's Best Wines

"This a journalistic book, a very sound bit of journalism by Suzanne Mustacich. She is based in Bordeaux, but she clearly travelled to China an awful lot and unravelled a most amusing commercial battle that went on in the early years of this decade between the Bordeaux chateau owners and merchants on the one side and Chinese business people on the other. Each were trying to make as much money as possible out of the other and resorting to not always the most tried-and-tested ways of doing business. It’s quite dramatic for anyone who cares about wine. They were all trying to diddle each other like mad, and the Bordelais committed the hugely silly sin of thinking they could run rings around these ignorant, Asian, wannabe investors. Of course, the Chinese are much wilier than they realised. I can remember it all very clearly. It was February 2008. I was driving from Hong Kong airport into Central, and a friend of mine, a Hong Kong wine writer, texted me and said, ‘Have you heard? They’ve just done away with the wine tax here in Hong Kong.’ By doing that, Hong Kong became the hub of the exploding Asian fine wine market, because there are big taxes in pretty much every other Asian country. I was in Bangkok just a few days ago—where there is 300-400% ad valorem tax on wine, so it is prohibitively expensive—and one big wine lover said to me airily, ‘Whenever I want to buy wine, I just send my secretary to Hong Kong with a couple of empty suitcases.’ There’s a massive trade in humans just carrying bottles over the border from Hong Kong into mainland China. Yes, Château Lafite came to have iconic status in China. There are several different theories: that the people behind Château Lafite really worked hard at it, that the name ‘Lafite,’ has a special significance. Also, that the first Chinese to invest in Lafite really did make a killing, and there’s nothing more convincing than that for the Chinese to encourage everyone to try and do the same. The result was that Lafite’s price absolutely ballooned and pulled away massively from all the other first growths. But now it’s come right back. The Chinese were persuaded to invest massively in the 2009 and 2010 vintages, which were very, very good. But they sold at hugely inflated prices. They had their fingers burned because prices softened after they paid out all the initial money. Everybody says that there are still warehouses in China piled high with top quality Bordeaux just waiting for the market to turn. Oh, yes. China is awash with fakes, absolutely awash with them. And not just subtle fakes with bottles whose labels make them look like Château Lafite, but also silly fakes that have a badly mimeographed copy of, typically, a bottle of Lafite, but it could be anything. Then it’s called ‘Château Lafeet.’ On JancisRobinson.com , we had a huge many-parted serial on Chinese fakery with lots of photographs because a lawyer who was trying to stamp it out very kindly shared all his investigations. Not if the label is spelled wrong. Or you have things like Bordeaux Port, or Minervois Pinot Noir. As the price of the top wine has soared so, of course, has the incidence of counterfeits. There are a few specialists in authentication but the sad thing about wine, rather than a picture, is that you can’t definitively tell what it tastes like until you’ve destroyed the evidence. It’s a bit of a case of the Wild East. There are still people selling quite blatantly dubious fine wines in Hong Kong, which they wouldn’t get away with in London or New York. I haven’t tried it. I’ve never seen it, but I certainly know lots of people who have. But you underestimate the Chinese at your peril. There are a lot of very keen wine lovers in China now, who are increasingly fastidious and knowledgeable. There are a lot of wine students. The first Chinese resident master of wine will be covered with glory, and there’s a great race to become that person. They’re the fourth biggest grower of grapevines in the world, and one of the biggest markets for wine. Growing at a great pace, although it has slowed slightly since the premier outlawed bribery and giving gifts. I’m a judge of the annual Oxford Versus Cambridge Wine Tasting Competition, which I did just before setting off for my Asian trip. All the top tasters this year were Asian. The Wine & Spirit Education Trust , which is the global prime wine educator, running courses all over the world, their biggest national group is Britain because that’s were they started. But China is almost ready to overtake them in terms of number of students. And the top student they always give a prize has been an Asian woman for some years now. The Asian palate is very sensitive. Most Chinese wine is pretty awful, as you discovered. I’ve been every two years this century, and I always ask somebody whose taste I respect to line up for me a tasting of what they reckon are the best Chinese wines. In the first decade of the century not much changed, but, actually, in the last four years or so, there’s been a dramatic upturn in the number of decent Chinese red wines. This last trip, I came across about five really quite respectable wines. LVMH have just brought out the first vintage of their top Yunnan Red which is pretty smart. They’re selling it at 200 Euros a bottle. My tastes mirror the masses, to a certain extent. Nowadays, I’m not looking for the big, oaky wines that Australia sent initially, and we thought, ‘These make those French ones look a bit anaemic and unfriendly!’ Now, of course, the Australians are making copies of those anaemic, unfriendly wines — or rather very austere, steely wines. I think, probably, that what I’m looking for keeps changing, but I’ve never really liked the absolutely massive, turbo-charged, full-of-alcohol wines. I’ve always treasured subtlety, really. It’s true. Occasionally, someone will say to me, ‘You’ve been around so long, you’ve got this website and this FT column. What is it like having all that power in the world of wine?’ And I say, ‘Well, for forty years, I’ve been banging the drum for Riesling and that hasn’t had much effect.’ In defence of poor old Riesling, I think the reason it never takes off is that it’s got an awful lot of flavour and character, and you either love it or loathe it. Yes, but it’s got this strong flavour that some people just don’t like. Whereas no one could accuse Pinot Grigio of having an excess of flavour, and, of course, it’s soaring away. I couldn’t love Burgundy more. There’s a very good book on Burgundy called Inside Burgundy by Jasper Morris, which is really nice and beautifully designed as well. I would certainly recommend it to anyone. The only trouble with Burgundy is that, even more than Bordeaux, it’s changing. There are lots of new players because it is so sought-after at the moment. It is very, very fashionable. It’s even more difficult to keep up with what’s going on in Burgundy, than in Bordeaux. Probably as a substitute for drinking it. It doesn’t have calories, it doesn’t have alcohol, but you can still immerse yourself in wine. I remember, way, way back, in between Oxford and becoming a wine writer, for a brief time, I was organising skiing holidays. There was a year when no one could afford to go skiing, but sales of skiing books soared. Perhaps, there’s a bit of that as well. Wine is also a complex subject, however much popularisers might say, ‘Oh, it’s easy.’ It’s not. There’s lots of ramifications to wine, which is why the pass rate of the Masters of Wine Exam is only about 10%. There’s a lot of information to share. It’s a very broad qualification. It’s not necessarily deep, but to pass, you have to be good at writing, you have to be good at blind tasting, you have to understand science to quite a reasonable degree, and you have got to have a great memory. Combining all those things is quite rare, really."