Wine from China

Contrary to popular belief, growing, making and drinking wines has a long history in China. As with all matters historical in China, this is backed up with written evidence, not necessarily only in form of official records. For eample, there was mention of grape wine in the Tang Poem " A Song of Liangzhou" (王翰的〈涼州詞〉- 葡萄美酒夜光杯 )

Grapes have been grown for wine in Xinjiang since the Tang dynasty (618-907AD), with the wine grape possibly brought over from Europe via the Silk Road. Lou Lan was an ancient Kingdom from before the time of Christ and wine has been made here for a long time. Before the modernisation of the winery here, some wine was still made using the ancient methods. It was said that the sweet wines of Lou Lan were quite well known.

My wife and I were invited to this wine dinner featuring the wines of Lou Lan around 9 years ago. The wine presentd that evening included a semi-dry Chenin Blanc, a dry wine from Baiyu (literally White Jade, the local name for the Georgian grape Rkatsiteli) and two Cabernet Sauvignon wines. This one was aged in barrel, but with high ambient temperatures, accelerated aging had occurred so that it was like a wine over 10 years old, rather than a 3 year old wine.