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!