Sparkling Wines in Shanghai

Meal:

Smoked Salmon on Orange slices (Phillip), 

Vietnamese Spring Rolls (Nar), 

Home made Fusilli and Cheddar (Dory), 

Green Salad (Dory),

Tiramisu (Takeout)

Wines Tasted:

1. Lindeman's Bin 25 Brut Cuvee, 12%, ¥165, 
2. Seaview Brut,11%, ¥138
3. Jacob's Creek Chardonnay Pinot Noir, 11.5%, ¥150
4. Perelada Brut Reserva Cava, 11.5%, ¥148
5. Cava Parxet Cuvee 21 Brut, 11.5%, ¥130

Overall Impressions:

These wines were all in the range of $21-$26 USD, but as with everything in China, you don't always get what you pay for. Our guests were fairly consistent in uniform liking the Lindemans - it had a noticeably more complex flavor profile, the flavor changed in the mouth (in a good way), and there was a pleasant aftertaste. One of our guests was from Melbourne, and he said that Lindemans at home was a a $5 bottle of wine! I think that's the price of being a wine-imbibing expat in China.

The Seaview and the Jacobs Creek wines were OK, and they would be fine at a party where they would not impress or offend.We were reminded of "house sparkling wines" while drinking these two.

One guest remarked that the Perelada had an "aspirin" flavor; another noted a metallic aftertaste. These are not desirable qualities in wine.

The Parxet Cava scored the lowest, although not by much, and we all thought that "there's nothing there", no flavor, no aroma, really, not much going on at all.

The most interesting thing about the evening was the pairing of food with sparkling wine. In our house we usually think of sparkling wine as an aperitif, something to start the evening.  In fact, when we host these wine tastings for other wines we always start with a glass of some sort of sparkling wine to get the taste buds "in the mood", so to speak.

The winners in the food pairing department were the smoked salmon on orange slices as an appetizer and the Mac and Cheese. Several people noted that after the salmon and oranges the wines "woke up" and the flavors were both better and more plentiful.

Cabernet Sauvignon from Chile

Chilean Cabernet Sauvignon wines

Finding a reliable table wine in Shanghai is still a problem but our recent tasting of Cabernet Sauvignon from Chile was a delightful surprise. As usual, we chose a grape (Cabernet Sauvignon) from a particular region (Chile). Each guest brought a bottle of wine that met that standard and sold for no more than ¥160 (about $26). Each bottle was wrapped and served blind, and we tasted each of them in turn.

Last Spring we tasted Shiraz from Australia and were largely disappointed. None of them were really very good. By contrast, these Chilean Cabs were all pretty good (with the exception of the corked wine, of course). We had a duplicate pair of wines, and one of them was corked. Other than that, everyone agreed that all wines were certainly drinkable and even enjoyable. With the exception of the winning wine (and of course the corked wine) all wines were good, solid, enjoyable Cabernet Sauvignon wines.  Any of them would be fine with an inexpensive dinner, at a party, or as a 'second' bottle of wine.

The winning bottle, by score and by unanimous acclaim, was Carta Vieja Prestige.  It was a much more lively wine, with flavors that evolved over time, from the first whiff of the aroma to a lingering aftertaste, minutes after the wine had been swallowed.  This was a wine that wants you to pay attention to it, to savor each sip and to pause before once again bringing the glass to the lips.  It was a pretty well balanced wine, and curiously, does not have any big flavors that predominate.  It had berry, wood, a bit of leather, and cherry, but nothing overpowering, and no stand out flavors.

Here are the wines we tasted, in the order we ranked them:

1. Carta Vieja Prestige
2. Santa Rita Reserva
3. Concha Y Toro Frontera
4. Cousino Macul Antigua Reservas

Not ranked

• Miguel Torres Emblema
• Miguel Torres Santa Digna Reserve

Dory cooked an excellent meal of Fusilli with mushroom cream sauce,  green salad, bread, and chocolate mousse for dessert. 

New Zealand wines in Shanghai

Earlier this spring we attended a wine tasting at the Roosevelt Hotel, which featured wines from New Zealand, particularly one Sauvignon Blanc and three Pinot Noir wines. The cost was ¥120 each, which included snacks, the wines, and of course views of the Bund and Pudong Financial center across the river. It's always worthwhile going downtown, and this seemed interesting, so we took the shuttle downtown and walked to the Bund.

We enjoyed the wines (more on those in a minute) enough that we bought some of them and had them delivered. In the process we were able to get samples of all four wines so that we could replicate the wine tasting at home.

Here are the wines:

Omni Hills Limestone Ridge Sauvignon Blanc, New Zealand, 2011, 13.6%, ¥130 (about $21.50) omnihills.co.nz

Omni Hills Limestone Ridge Pinot Noir, New Zealand, 2011, 14.4%, ¥200 (about $33) omnihills.co.nz

Miners Daughter Reserve Pinot Noir, North Canterbury, New Zealand, 2011, 14%, ¥268 (about $44)

Pyramid Valley Vineyards, Growers Collection, Cowley Family Vineyard Pinot Noir, 2010, 14%, ¥335 (about $55) Wakari, North Canterbury, New Zealand

The Omni Hills Sauvignon Blanc was a real treat. It was exceptionally well balanced, with the citrus flavors common to Sauvignon Blanc, but with some additional roundness, almost a vanilla hint that made it less acidic and very versatile. I generally like the grapefruit flavors of Sauvignon Blanc, but this wine felt a bit more nuanced, more elegant. It has a long flavor profile, developing in your mouth and then slowly melting away, leaving a suggestion of vanilla, a touch of mineral, and mixed fruit. It has slightly too much alcohol for my preference, but it is well balanced. The only problem is that at 13.6% you have to think about how much you can have! Very nice wine, and very nice as an accompaniment to Chinese food here in Shanghai. We're looking forward to drinking more of this.

Omni Hills was also represented by a very nice, light-bodied Pinot Noir, their Limestone Ridge Pinot at ¥200.  This wine had a delightful, delicate, long flavor profile, with cherry and raspberry flavors. The flavors are so delicate, so nice, and it's a bit of a shame that it doesn't have more body. Pinot Noir can be made in a wide variety of styles, and the full-bodied wines are so good, that they tend to be what many of us look for in Pinot Noir.

(As an aside, a colleague was raving about an Erath (Oregon, Willamette Valley) Pinot Noir he had had that was stunning. He went out and bought several bottles of Erath, only to find that, while good, it wasn't the same full bodied Pinot he had fallen in love with on his first tasting. The fact is, there can be excellent light bodied Pinot and wonderful full bodied Pinot, and if you are expecting one and get the other, it's possible to be disappointed.  Just sayin.)

Miner's Daughter made a very tasty Pinot Noir with a wonderful aroma, a full body, and … then it falls off a cliff. Once in the mouth, the flavor turns acidic and somehow stops. When Dory and I tasted this at the Roosevelt, I didn't even finish the sample pour.  On the other hand, when we held our own wine tasting recently, it ranked higher than the Limestone Ridge Pinot.  So, some of us liked it better than, well, than I did. I wanted to like it but I just found it had a bad finish.

The Pyramid Valley Pinot Noir, in contrast to both the earlier wines, was awesome.  Of course, at more than $50 it certainly ought to be good. And in fact I loved it. It has a full intriguing aroma, a full bodied first taste, and a lingering aftertaste. It was multi layered, with fruit, cherries, and earthy flavors. 

When we had our wine tasting at our house, re-creating (without fireworks, sadly) the original, the results changed a bit. Dory and I still held to our original preferences, but our guests thought the Miners Daughter was very good. So, there you go - personal taste trumps all.

We were happy to find these wines, and very happy to be drinking them in Shanghai. It is available through http://globus-wine.com/.

Bordeaux disappointment in Shanghai

Our second wine tasting in China confirmed what we found last time: it's hard to find good wines at the $26 price point. There are some, but it is difficult. That's the bad news.  The good news?  The quiche was great!

Our latest wine tasting was a bit of a surprise - we had been wanting to do this but kept letting planning get in the way. So on Wednesday we announced that we were going to do a wine tasting and emailed past participants and a few others who had expressed interest. By Friday we had our 8.

Because it was short notice the easiest wine to get around here, by far, is Bordeaux. The French have a firm foothold in the Chinese market. So that's what we were drinking, Bordeaux, priced at up to ¥160 (about $26 USD).

In the US we choose the price point of $20 because we were interested in finding good tasting wines that wouldn't break the bank.  Even everyday wines ought to taste good. So that was our mindset. In China prices are higher and it seemed that we could find a variety of wines at ¥160.

Sadly, these wines were mostly bad. It is as if we were looking for a drinkable wine at $6 instead of $26.  Here is the tally:

Bordeaux, La Buissiére, 2011, 13% ¥unrecorded, wine "D" scores from 4.5-9, average total 6.5/20

Mouton Cadet, Rothschild, 2009, 13.5%, ¥135, wine "C", scores from 1.5-13, average total 7.5/20

Bordeaux, Chateau Dudon, 2009, 13.5%, ¥118, Wine "B", scores from 6-9, average total 8/20 

Bordeaux, l'Union de Producteurs, 2010, 14%, ¥158, Wine "A", scores from 9.5-15, average total 13/20

So, wine "A" was a winner, and pretty closely scored by everyone. We bought it at Carrefour, prompted by a French salesman who told us he drank it at home growing up. And we believed him, but whether true or not it was a good wine.

After finishing our sampling, I brought out a bottle of Cotes du Rhône, Chapoutier, 2010, 14%, ¥158.   Dory had found this and we liked it.  Everyone at our Bordeaux tasting also liked it, better than at least 3 of the four bottles, and certainly competitive with the best Bordeaux.

The reason we do these wine tastings is to have fun but also to learn  about various wines, and one of our guests commented that the Cotes du Rhône was spicier, a really different taste. So I was pretty happy that even though we are not finding affordable everyday wines, we are certainly learning something!

Shiraz Tasting in Shanghai

The wine tasting was clearly a success, but it wasn't due to the wine.  At least not in my opinion. 

It has been over a year since our last wine tasting, Reisling, which we had in Munich. In the interim, we moved back from Munich and then on to Shanghai. Munich was mostly a beer culture, but a variety of good wines were available and at reasonable prices. Shanghai is much more cosmopolitan than other parts of China, but we had been warned that wine was expensive and kind of hard to find. The Chinese are apparently getting into wine, with wine stores and wine offerings in the expat shops. Still, wines are more expensive here than in the US and much more than in Europe.  I think it's a question of demand rather than taxation, but it's still a bit of a mystery.

We chose to have a wine tasting with Australian Shiraz, (no blends) with prices up to ¥160 (about $26).  In the US we could find a number of pretty good wines in that price range. As before, guests shop for a wine that fits the parameter, and when they arrive I wrap the bottle up and so we are not swayed by marketing or price.

As in Munich, we found 6 colleagues who shared an interest in wine and who we thought would be fun to spend an evening with.  We were not disappointed.

Here are the wines that made an appearance:

A Jacobs Creek Shiraz,  ¥125, 2009, SE Australia, 13.5%

B Nederburg, ¥105, 2010, from South Africa, 14.5%

C Andrew Peace, ¥125, 2008, Barossa, 14%

D Peter Lehmann, ¥130, 2008, South Australia, 14.5%

E Mr Riggs The Gaffer, ¥158, 2009, McLaren Vale, 14.5%

One couple brought a bottle of Nederburg Shiraz from South Africa instead of getting something from Australia, and it turned out to be a favorite.  It was richer, had more of the spice and fruit flavors that we associate with Shiraz, and had a longer, fuller finish. As it happened, it was also the cheapest at ¥105.

The other bottles, all Australian Shiraz, tasted to me like an adequate table wine. Clearly Shiraz, but nothing special. Not particularly full flavors, not especially long lasting, not surprising or notable. Just adequate. The Peter Lehmann, at ¥130, was the worst, with most of us proclaiming "Meh" to this Barossa Valley wine. Go figure.

We ordered Indian take out, and it went well with the wine and predictably made every wine taste better. Plus ordering take out food was a lot easier to manage.

We chose Shiraz because it was the closest of the major wine producers, and Australia has a long commercial relationship with the Chinese. Plus we like Shiraz, it's the middle of winter and it's cold outside. Why didn't we find better wines from Australia?  It could be the price point was too low, but the SA wine was cheaper and noticeably better.  It could be that the Chinese market likes a different style of wine than we like.

But we had fun, and that's what counts.

Oh, and one more thing. Dory insisted that we start the evening with a sparkling wine. She chose an Australian sparkling wine called Seaview Brut. It was very good, and a perfect way to get things going. I'd definitely have that again.

Stay tuned. It's possible that we will have more wine tastings in the future!