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!