About the Book
Title: Inside the Chinese Wine Industry
Author: Loren Mayshark
Genre: Nonfiction
The wine
business is one of the world’s most fascinating industries and China is
considered the rising star. A hidden secret, the Chinese wine industry
continues to grow at an amazing pace and is projected to soon enter the top
five producing nations, supplanting long established countries such as
Australia. Inside the Chinese Wine Industry: The Past, Present, and Future
of Wine in China takes you through the growing Chinese wine scene.
Wine has had a meteoric rise in China over the past two decades. The nation is projected to become the second most valuable market for wine in the world by 2020. One recent study concluded that 96% of young Chinese adults consider wine their alcoholic drink of choice. Not only does Inside the Chinese Wine Industry explore current expansion and business models, it journeys back to the past to see where it all began.
There
are more than seven hundred wineries in China today. Although it’s bit of an
oversimplification, the vast majority of the wineries fit into one of two categories:
the larger established producers who churn out mostly plonk to meet the growing
demand for inexpensive wine and the newer wineries that try to cater to the
tastes of the wealthy Chinese with money to spend on luxury goods like fine
wine. In the words of wine guru Karen MacNeil, author of The Wine Bible, “The cheap wines from the very large producers have
mostly verged on dismal.” However, this should not be considered a blanket
statement regarding every wine from large producers. Also, she has positive
reflections regarding the level of wine produced by “cutting-edge wineries”
which she finds “far better.” How good are they? MacNeil asserts: “Some of
these wines are so good they could easily pass for a California or Bordeaux
wine in a blind tasting.”
Author Bio
Loren Mayshark studied
Chinese art, religion, philosophy, and history while earning a B.A. in history
from Manhattanville College in New York. After graduation, he attended
The Gotham Writers Workshop and the prestigious New York Writers Workshop. He
has written about the Chinese wine industry for The Jovial Journey and Sublime
China.
After college, he supported his itinerant
lifestyle by working dozens of jobs, including golf caddy, travel writer,
construction worker, fireworks salesman, substitute teacher, and vineyard
laborer. Predominantly his jobs have been in the restaurant industry. He cut
his teeth as a server, maître d’, and bartender at San Francisco’s historic
Fisherman’s Grotto #9, the original restaurant on the Fisherman’s Wharf. While
working with a colorful crew of primarily Mexican and Chinese co-workers.
He spent much of his young adult life exploring the wine industry from Sonoma Valley to the
North Fork of Long Island, immersing himself in vineyards and learning valuable
lessons. He has
traveled extensively in South America, Europe, and Asia. He presently
splits his time between Western New York and Sweden.
His first book, Death: An Exploration, won the 2016
Beverly Hills Book Award in the category of Death and Dying and was a finalist
for book of the year in the 2016 Foreword INDIES Awards in the category of
Grief/Grieving (Adult Nonfiction). Inside
the
Chinese Wine Industry
is his third book.
For more information visit his website:
lorenmayshark.com.
Keep up with him on Twitter: @LorenMayshark
Links
Twitter: https://bit.ly/2JgrXQy
Facebook: https://bit.ly/2PoUKHW and http://bit.ly/LMaysharkFB
Author Website
Bookpage: http://bit.ly/LmaysharkWB
Promos
Excerpt 1
CHAPTER I:
Introduction
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ew things signal
civilization and sophistication more than enjoying a fine wine with an
excellent meal. It may be asserted that China is the world’s oldest continuous civilization.
One of the features of its culture is that Chinese cuisine serves up superb
meals. Until recently, however, fine wines have been absent there, at least
wine made from the noble grape.
In many ways, we live
in a golden age for wine. The wine world has many exciting new wrinkles from
fancy new mobile applications to devices that allow us to extract a glass of
wine from a bottle and then return it to the cellar to rest for a couple of
years without changing the character of the wine. With all the current trends
and innovations, it is the best time to enjoy wine. This is certainly a special
age, in the words of renowned wine critic Jancis Robinson: “The irony is that
just as the difference in price between the best and worst wines is greater
than it has ever been, the difference in quality is narrower than ever before.”[1] Perhaps one of the most pervasive reasons for
this truism, which Robinson so eloquently captured, is the globalization of the
wine industry. One cannot fully understand the global wine industry of today
without developing a deeper understanding of its largest and fastest growing
player: China.
Though starting
relatively late historically with grape wine production and consumption, China
has been catching up quickly. China’s role in the global wine industry
continues to grow at an astonishing pace. Wine consumption in China doubled
between 2008 and 2013 when China became the fifth largest consumer of wine in
the world. At the end of 2013, China became the world’s largest market for red
wine, and China is projected to become the second most valuable market for wine
in the world by 2020 (behind the U.S.), which will have a profound impact on
various aspects of the global wine industry.[2] These are significant statistics for anyone
who has a serious interest in the global wine industry.
To feed the rapidly
rising consumption, the domestic production in China has also increased at an
amazing rate. China now has more than seven hundred vineyards, compared to 240
in 1995.[3] As of 2018, China is projected to have the
second largest area of wine grapes planted in the world and to be the seventh
largest producer of wine.[4]
While wine has deep
roots in Western culture, China has a rich history of wine production which
dates back to millennia before Christ. However, it must be stressed that this
tradition is almost exclusively rice wine. The production and mass consumption
of grape wine is a recent phenomenon in China. A 2015 poll found that 96
percent of young adults in China select wine as their favored alcoholic
beverage.[5] This book examines the development of the
Chinese wine industry in a historical context and explains how the Chinese
grape wine industry has exploded in the last two decades. We will explore the
fascination with European Grapes in China and the explosion of the import and
consumption of Vitis vinifera (the
most important wine-grape species in the world) in China and the historical
precedent for that. We will attempt to answer burning questions such as: What
changed to make China wine-crazy? How can a tourist enjoy unique wine
experiences in China? Why is mass wine production and consumption a modern
phenomenon? Why are there not a lot of Chinese wines exported to the United
States and Europe?
Excerpt 2
CHAPTER IV:
Factors That Affected the Rise in
Consumption and Production of Grape Wine in China
Emperor Kangxi sets a Precedent for wine in modern China
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mperor Kangxi
(1654-1722) had perhaps the most significant case of diarrhea in wine history
early on in his reign. The disease persisted until a European missionary
suggested that he drink a little grape wine to cure his ailment.[6] At first, the emperor was wary, but desperate
for a cure, he followed the instructions. At the missionary’s behest, he
continued to drink a little wine each day until he was cured. He was amazed at
the healing quality of the wine that he quickly grew to enjoy. He developed a
passion for wine for the rest of his life, continuing to have a little wine
every day, which was a habit formed during his ailment. The moment is
considered the first “official” introduction of European wine to China since
the consumption of wine derived from European grapes (Vitis Vinifera) had not been consumed by the Emperor before. His
habit of drinking this wine can be traced back as a seminal moment in the
history of European wine consumption and cultivation in China.[7]
Emperor Kangxi reigned
for sixty-one years before his death in 1722. During this long reign, he had
time to address a number of social issues, but he was at his core a tinkerer
who had a passion for grape wine. He is credited with testing numerous
varieties of wine grapes in many different locales within his kingdom in hopes
of finding new and exciting ways to cultivate grapes and enjoy wine. He is
considered to be one of China’s greatest emperors and perhaps his egalitarian
approach to agriculture contributed to his legacy. As he once famously
asserted: “I would rather procure for my subjects a novel kind of fruit or
grain, than build a hundred porcelain kilns.”[8]
No other ruler during
the Qing Dynasty (1616-1911) shared Kangxi’s passion for grape cultivation. In
fact, industrial cultivation of wine in China did not begin until 1892 when
businessman Chang Bishi established the Changyu wine Production Company in the
Shandong Province. The Changyu Wine Production Company was started with three
million tael of silver[9] as seed money. That money was used to bring in
state-of-the-art equipment from Europe and wine specialists from around the
world. Changyu began producing brandy along with red and white wine in the
first serious modern endeavor to make world class wine in China. The production
of great wine was built upon a foundation philosophy of mixing Western and
Chinese techniques to produce extraordinary wine. The company began with high
hopes, which is evident from the name Changyu
which comes from Chang Bishi’s surname, Chang. The word Yu is the Chinese word for “prosperity.” In pursuit of lasting
prosperity, Chang built in 1905 a modern wine cellar that was the biggest in
all of Asia at the time. The winery did not formally open until 1914. But it
had an auspicious start, capturing four gold medals at the Panama Pacific
International Exposition in 1915.[10]
About one hundred
years later, a plucky British businessman named Chris Ruffle would add an
interesting new chapter to this history in the present day when he founded his
Treaty Port Vineyards in Shandong, bottling his first vintage in 2010. His
unique journey is chronicled in his book, A
Decent Bottle of Wine in China, which is not only entertaining, but also
instructive. Evident from Ruffle’s account, the wine industry has changed
drastically since Chang Bishi bottled his first wine nearly a century earlier.
We will explore those changes in depth in subsequent chapters.
Excerpt 3
Wine in Communist China
In 1949, soon after
the communist party took power in China, Changyu was nationalized and focused
on making brandy, to the delight of the communist party’s senior leaders.[11] Under communist rule, the consumption of
baijiu among other spirits and beer dominated the Chinese alcohol industry.
Commonly, tipplers at lavish Chinese banquets, often thrown by a member of the
communist party, were encouraged to “Gan
bei” which roughly translates to empty the glass. In America, there are
other related phrases such as “bottoms up.” Tony Stavely, professor emeritus at
Keene State College and oenophile who has spent time in China, recalls speaking
with a U.S. diplomat who served in Taiwan. He taught Stavely that at a proper
Chinese banquet, a toast must be made by someone who wants a sip of wine, and
then all at the table must raise a glass and sip also. The consumption of
alcohol in China is often done by adherence to social rules garnered from old
traditions. These traditions have made for some interesting situations for
foreigners who are newly initiated into the drinking culture and perhaps no
drinking tale is more colorful and significant than that of Richard Nixon’s
visit.
In the winter of 1972,
president Richard Nixon sat at a lavish dinner held in Beijing’s Great Hall of
the People, surrounded by many of China’s elite. This occasion was the eve of a
momentous change in geopolitics. Nixon was encouraged by Zhou Enlai, Mao’s
number one man, to gan bei the
powerful baijiu in his cup. Instead,
Nixon timidly sipped the fiery booze, walking a fine line of not insulting his
hosts, while not getting too plastered to continue his negotiations. Nixon’s
caginess proved fruitful for the United States and the Chinese wine industry,
eventually opening China up to the West. But soon Chinese politics was headed
for more major adjustments. As Chairman Mao’s days were numbered, the party
began to drift in a different direction.[12]
The most significant
change in the economic structure of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) came
with the emergence of Deng Xiaoping after the death of Chairman Mao in 1976.
Deng drastically changed the Chinese communist orthodoxy by moving from a
command economy to what was referred to as “Socialism with Chinese
Characteristics.” Deng rationalized this move with this famous analogy: “It
doesn’t matter if a cat is black or white, so long as it catches mice.” As time
wore on, China’s financial success was seen as fueling a rise in alcohol
consumption. The grains used to make certain liquors were produced on a larger
scale, making them cheaper and more available. Also, more people had disposable
income to purchase powerful liquor, namely baijiu.
The prevailing solution in the party was that the grains that were once used to
produce hard liquor could be better utilized as fodder for animals and to feed
the masses of starving Chinese who did not have the same opportunities as those
with close ties to the ruling government. This created a demand for something
to fill the void.[13]
Deng had an ambitious
plan to double the nation’s GDP during the 1980s. Although Chinese economy saw
unprecedented growth under Deng, the party was still grappling with starvation
and malnourishment as it strained to feed its rapidly growing population. This
made the expensive baijiu that was
still being consumed by the leadership (sometimes to the point of notable
inebriation) a conspicuously frivolous way to use grains that could feed their
starving countrymen. Unlike sorghum, rice and other grains used for baijiu, grapes could be grown in a wide
array of territories, even in places where the soil and other vital conditions
were not hospitable to growing grains used in baijiu.[14]
Excerpt 4
Li Peng’s Proclamation is the Spark that Ignites the Wine
Industry
All of these currents
flowed together, coming to a head at an extraordinary moment in 1996. Li Peng,
who was Premier at the time, stood before the National People’s Congress in
Beijing and praised red wine for its many benefits to the health of the
individual and for the country. He criticized the use of baijiu and called for change. He solidified his position at future
banquets by being careful to provide red wine which he would hold high in the
air for toasts where in the past, those glasses would have been filled with baijiu. The pronouncement of Li combined
with a wave of news pieces on the merits of red wine in maintaining and
improving heath, especially cardiovascular health, made it an almost instant
hit. Moreover, red is a lucky color in China, so red wine was an easy sell. The
fortune of those who loved red wine in China and others who sought to profit
from this growing industry had just taken a massive positive turn.[15]
The impact of Li’s
proclamation was timely, and the impact was widespread. To meet the growing
demand, China was shipping wine in by the 22,000-liter bag. In 1996, Fernando
Rovira was in charge of international sales at the Bodegas Félix Solis winery
located in Spain. He recalls that the orders started rolling in from China for
significant volumes of wine. “People wanted four, five containers in the first
order, no sample required,” he reflected.[16]
The proclamation by Li
in 1996 coincided with the Ninth Five-Year-Plan approved by the National
People’s Congress in the same year. This plan insisted upon a dramatic increase
in the quantity of grapes produced domestically and an increased production of
wine. Since vineyard production was not robust enough to meet government
demands, many wineries including Great Wall and Dynasty (two of the “Big Three”
producers along with Changyu), imported grapes from Australia, South American,
Spain, and even France. The wine industry was on the rise, and so was the
purchasing power of the Chinese expanding consumer class.[17]
The industry was in
the midst of a viticultural gold rush and many enterprising individuals
scrambled to get a piece of the action. Before Li’s proclamation, there were
several dozen vineyards, but that number swelled to three hundred in just a few
years. In a single year, the volume of wine consumption almost tripled in
China, and imports grew sixfold.[18] The wine industry was not the only aspect of
the Chinese economy that was roaring.
Deng Xiaoping’s
economic overhaul ushered in a period of rapid industrialization and
transformed the nation from a more collective structure with a state-run
economy (command economy) into one of many have-nots and a small growing class
of nouveau riche. China experienced
decades of rapid economic growth. Next to the United States, China has more
billionaires than any other country in the world.[19] China is fourth worldwide in the number of
millionaires.[20] Moreover, Beijing, Shanghai, and Hong Kong
rank in the top ten wealthiest cities in the world.[21]
As the nation was
creating an ultra-rich class, China was opening up to the rest of the globe and
curiosity about the West, and its trappings soon followed. The taste for
Western luxury in the form of BMWs, Gucci, and a thirst for the best of
Bordeaux flourished; fine wine became a symbol of success for many. The story
about a rising class of industrial entrepreneurs is one that is pertinent to
the development of a prosperous wine industry. The developing role of wine as
something to enjoy, to learn about, and as a way to show off one’s status in
China is pivotal in explaining its current popularity. Moreover, it was used as
a means to flatter and in some cases bribe. Wine is an interesting prism
through which to view China’s economic ascent and their emergence on the world
stage as a player in many key markets.[22]
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