Chinese grape wine

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Chinese grape wine (葡萄酒; pinyin: pútáo jiǔ),has been one of traditional wine with other traditional wines made from millet or rice and native fruits such as lychee or plum.

Contents 1 History 2 French wine in China 3 External links 4 See also

[edit] History

Following Zhang Qian's exploration of the country's western region in the 2nd century BCE, high quality grapes were introduced into China and Chinese grape wine (called putao jiu in Chinese) was first produced.[1]

[edit] French wine in China

Recently,French wine has become more and more common in China as Western tastes have become more popular within China.

Also, as globalization has brought China onto the international economic scene, so too has its winemaking industry come onto the international wine scene. China has a long tradition of the fermentation and distillation of Chinese wine of various sorts, but is one of the most recent participants in the globalization of wine that started years ago in Paris, when several countries realized that they could produce wines as good as most French wine outside of France.

Grape wine has been marketed in China steadily over the past decade, as the disposable incomes of its people have risen. Soon, the reverse began to happen as vines were cultivated in China for the production of wine. This wine has not only been sold in China, but it has been exported abroad worldwide.

One French vintner named Alain Leroux arrived in China in 1996 with French grape vines and years of experience gained at various wineries in Burgundy, Alsace, and Côtes du Rhône. He claims that his wines stand up to those he helped produce in France, despite some hardships associated with China's colder winters.

Quite recently, drinkable Chinese grape wine has begun to appear on shelves in California. While some critics have treated these wines with the same type of disregard that Chilean and Australian wines were once treated, others have recognized a new frontier with the potential to yield some interesting finds. Others have simply taken notice that China is producing drinkable table wines that sell for 1-3 dollars less per bottle compared than comparable wines from other countries.

It remains to be seen if a Franco-European merlot will flood the market despite competition from countries such as Chile and Argentina. But perhaps the real market for Chinese wine is in China itself. Though demand in China has not reached high levels, if it did, this market would exceed the rest of the world, simply based on China's 1.35 billion population. What most agree on is that China is the newest frontier in the globalization of wine that started in Paris.

One of the largest producers of grape wine in China is the China Great Wall Wine Co., Ltd. Founded in 1983, it is headquartered in the Shacheng (沙城镇) region, Huailai County, Zhangjiakou, Hebei Province. Its annual wine production is 50 thousand tons.[2]

[edit] External links

• Chinese grape wine article
• China Great Wall Wine Co. page
• China Great Wall Wine Co. page

[edit] See also

• Chinese wine
• Huangjiu
• Baijiu
• Maotai
• Kaoliang
• Globalization of wine