【英语生活】中国式葡萄酒庄园

I don’t know about other wine lovers but I felt a small glow of pride when the Chinese government made wine its diplomatic weapon of choice in the trade war over the cheap solar panels it exports to the EU. Yes, the volumes of European wine imported into China really are now significant enough to be worth slapping an additional tax on!

The wine-in-China story is one with many different and often unrelated facets. There is the surge of imported wine into the country, the great volume of it pretty ordinary stuff, imported in bulk to be given labels which bear only the most creative relationship to any known brand in their place of origin. One of my favourites is Chateau Lateet, prominent when the reclame of Bordeaux first growth Chateau Lafite was at its height in China. “Bordeaux Port” on a label decorated with a fair copy of the engraving on a Lafite label was good too.

Solicitor Nick Bartman, who had been based in Hong Kong and was aghast at how slack controls were on wine labels in China, approached me three years ago seeking help to publicise the problem to wine exporters. He told me recently: “We’ve done one major job in Shandong and I reckon we’ve done ￠30+ million damage to the fake wine business. I’ve worked with the police and others. Wine companies have been closed and others are now under strict supervision. There’s more to do but it’s time for me to move on.”

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France, Spain, Chile and Australia in particular vie for this high-volume, low-profit sector of the wine business in China. Australian and other southern hemisphere exporters will presumably be hoping to benefit from the higher duties on wine imported from the EU. But the taxes are unlikely to have that much impact on sales of fine wines in China – not least because most of them are shipped to Hong Kong with its zero wine taxes. They are then somehow spirited across the border into China with its punitive but apparently avoidable duties of almost 50 per cent by value.

Much more of a threat to this market is another Chinese government phenomenon: the crackdown on official gifts. This has been a hugely important factor in China’s fine wine market and helps to explain the inordinate trouble wine producers there take with their packaging. Any ambitious Chinese wine comes in excessively lavish packaging, sometimes worth more than the wine itself. And there is a certain market, albeit increasingly fragile, that actively seeks out the most expensive wine possible regardless of quality. It is significant that the top Chinese wine with which peripatetic Bordeaux-based oenologist Michel Rolland is associated costs considerably more than his own Pomerol. Incidentally this Chateau Bon Pasteur was recently added to the growing list of Bordeaux chateaux acquired by Chinese investors.

Partly thanks to dogged work by visiting French proprietors, red bordeaux dominated the fine wine scene in China initially – but there is now an active desire to widen the horizons of that small proportion of the Chinese population who drink wine (although even they will probably do so only on special occasions). Burgundy is the obvious next stop on the Chinese wine route – a truly terrifying prospect for those who already have difficulty securing allocations from this extremely small fine wine region.

As a result of the army of new wine importers, all hoping to capitalise on this new market but insistent on exclusivity, China is awash with brand names that are completely unknown in their country of origin. According to Shanghai wine lover Young Shi: “There is lots of awful burgundy in China.” She is a graduate of the courses run by the London-based Wine & Spirit Education Trust, the world’s leading wine education provider which expects to see the number of its students in Hong Kong and the rest of China overtake its British students this year.

Appearance is all when it comes to the production of wine in China. The countryside is now studded with palaces built in a style one might call Chateau Walt Disney. They purport to be wineries but often harbour more air, marble and, in some cases, spirits than wine. There sometimes seems no end to the number of Chinese plutocrats whose dream is to make the best and/or most expensive wine in China. Much of the expertise is imported, sometimes into countryside that has never previously seen a vine.

Lilian Carter is an Australian winemaker who worked three harvests at the winery that Pernod Ricard use for their Helan Mountain brand in the wine province of Ningxia. Along with Professor Li Demei, one of China’s most respected winemakers, Carter has now been recruited to establish WangZhong, a privately owned 130ha estate southwest of the Muslim city of Urumqi in the province of Xinjiang, five hours’ flying time west of Shanghai. Most of the grapes there, as in the majority of Chinese vineyards, are the red bordeaux staples of Cabernet and Merlot but Demei’s involvement is likely to guarantee interest in the debut 2012 vintage.

Stéphane Derenoncourt, the French consultant oenologist and rival to Michel Rolland, has been drafted in by the ex-chairman of the vast CITIC group to develop vineyards in Manasi county west of Urumqi, dramatically overlooked by the foothills of the Himalayas and not far off the old silk route. The advantage of this terrain compared with other wine regions such as Shandong in the east, where Chateau Lafite is establishing a vineyard, is its lack of humidity and vine diseases. The disadvantage is icy winters that mean each vine has to be buried painstakingly each autumn.

And then there is the project in which the owner of St-Emilion first growth Chateau Cheval Blanc and LVMH are involved with a local investor in Yunnan province close to the Tibetan border. This is apparently in the most beautiful but isolated sky-high setting – Tibetan-influenced and far enough south to need no winter protection. The Wild East indeed.

Tasting notes on Purple Pages of JancisRobinson.com

Twitter @JancisRobinson

当中国政府在与欧盟(EU)进行光伏战，选择葡萄酒作为反击武器时，不知道各位葡萄酒爱好者做何感想，至少我自己小小引以为傲了一把。实话实说，我认为中国向欧盟进口的葡萄酒，在数量上已经完全达到了可以额外加税的水平！

中国葡萄酒市场的发展受着多方面因素的影响，而且这些因素之间常常看似并没有什么必然联系。中国葡萄酒的进口量正在激增，其中大量的产品质量很一般。有些葡萄酒通过散装的形式进口，之后在中国国内贴标，起的名称多多少少都与相对应原产国的知名品牌有着相似度，可谓创意无限——我最“欣赏”的一个是对众所周知的波尔多一级列级酒庄(Bordeaux first growth)拉菲庄园(Chateau Lafite)的山寨，这款葡萄酒的名字叫做Chateau Lateet。拉菲庄园的名望和美誉在中国市场达到顶峰时，这样的例子不胜枚举。除了Chateau Lateet之外，还有一个创意也“很不错”，那就是在酒标上标注“波尔多港口”(Bordeaux Port)，同时还装饰有拉菲庄园酒标的雕刻图案。

三年前，葡萄酒中间商尼克?巴特曼(Nick Bartman)向我寻求过帮助，咨询葡萄酒出口商宣传行业遇到的问题。他常驻香港，最近对中国在葡萄酒标注册法规方面的宽松程度瞪目结舌：“我们主要的工作重心在山东省，假酒在那里给我们带来的损失，目前估算已经超过了三千万欧元。我已经与警方以及其他相关部门协同作战多次，最终的结果是那里的多家葡萄酒公司倒闭，幸存下来的公司也在严格的监管之下。展望未来，虽然要做的事还很多，但至少我们在前进。”

在中国市场，法国、西班牙、智利和澳大利亚这几个产酒国在大批量低利润产品领域中的竞争尤其激烈。澳大利亚等南半球国家期望中国上调欧盟葡萄酒的进口税，从而找到竞争优势，但是在中国市场，税率在这种档次产品上的影响肯定要远小于在精品葡萄酒(fine wines)上的影响——尤其是这些葡萄酒大多都是先运往零关税的香港而后又进入内地市场。中国内地的葡萄酒关税税率是货值的一半，明显高得离谱且带有惩罚性。

对中国葡萄酒市场冲击更大的是政府新规——大力打压政府礼品消费。礼品消费一度是中国精品葡萄酒市场极其重要的因素，这也很好地解释了为什么葡萄酒生产商对葡萄酒进行过度包装，以及这种做法所产生的问题和麻烦。为了更好地销售葡萄酒，中国国产葡萄酒在包装上完全不惜工本，有时包装费甚至超过葡萄酒产品本身。确实有一部分消费者在购买葡萄酒时遵循着“买最贵而不买最佳”的原则——尽管这部分市场日渐脆弱，但目前看来还没有到崩塌的时候。中国消费者热衷于品牌，典型的例子是，与常驻波尔多的著名飞行酿酒师米歇尔?罗兰(Michel Rolland)有关联的最优质中国葡萄酒，价格远远高于他本人在波美侯(Pomerol)的出品。顺便说一下，隶属于中国投资者的波尔多庄园有一张“成长大名单”，米歇尔?罗兰卖给中国投资者的庞巴酒庄(Chateau Bon Pasteur)近期入选其中。

最初的中国精品葡萄酒市场由波尔多红葡萄酒(red bordeaux)所统治，部分原因是人们多年来对法国业主们坚持不懈的参观拜访造成了先入为主的印象。不过目前来看，仅占中国人口数量很少部分的葡萄酒饮家（即便他们可能只在一些特殊场合才喝葡萄酒，但也可以称其为葡萄酒饮家）已经开始拓宽自己在选酒时的产区范围。勃艮第(Burgundy, Bourgogne)显然是他们追逐的下一个目标——如此小的精品葡萄酒产区本身产量就非常有限，而中国人介入之后，那些本来就很难拿到配额的人将来的日子只会越来越不好过。

大批葡萄酒进口商如雨后春笋般涌现，在这个新兴市场上疯狂掘金并努力寻求独家代理权，造成的结果是本在原产国完全默默无闻的众多品牌在中国市场内大行其道。对于这个现象，上海一位葡萄酒爱好者施晔(Young Shi)的看法很有代表性：“在中国市场，有太多糟糕的勃艮第葡萄酒。”施晔拥有葡萄酒与烈酒信托基金(Wine & Spirit Education Trust, WSET)品酒师文凭，这是一个总部位于伦敦的世界领先葡萄酒教育机构，预计今年在香港和中国其他地区的学员数量将超过英国本土。

在中国生产葡萄酒，表象至关重要，因此讨好外貌协会胜过一切。如今，中国广袤的乡村被很多独具特色的葡萄酒庄园所装点，你可以称这种特色庄园为“沃尔特?迪斯尼庄园(Chateau Walt Disney)”。如此建设的意图是想打旅游牌——来访者呼吸着这里的空气，抚摸着由大理石材料堆砌的建筑，有时候让人觉得形式已经大于内容，作为主角的葡萄酒本身反而成为了陪衬。目前看起来现在也有数不清的中国富豪有着酿造中国最好且最贵（或者但求最贵）葡萄酒的梦想，为了酿造最好的葡萄酒，大量的酿酒技术进入中国，其中一些引进技术的乡村地区之前连葡萄植株是什么样子都没有见过。

澳大利亚酿酒师莉莉安?卡特(Lilian Carter)曾在宝乐利加(Pernod Ricard)位于宁夏自治区酿造贺兰山(Helan Moutain)品牌的酒厂工作了三年，与中国最受推崇的酿酒师之一李德美教授共事。现在的她受雇于望中酒业(WangZhong)，这是一座位于新疆自治区首府乌鲁木齐西南方的酒厂，占地130公顷。乌鲁木齐是穆斯林城市，位于中国西北部，距离上海有五个小时的飞机航程。与中国其他主要的葡萄园一样，望中所种植的也是中规中矩的波尔多红色品种，如加本纳(Cabernet)和美乐(Merlot)，不过考虑到德美先生也参与其中，倒是让人对初次登台的2012年份出品很是期待。

在名气和技术上与米歇尔?罗兰不分伯仲的法国酿酒顾问斯蒂芬?德侬古(Stéphane Derenoncourt)也被中信集团(CITIC)前董事长选为带头人，帮助集团在乌鲁木齐西边的玛纳斯县建立葡萄园。此地靠近古老的丝绸之路，由于地理位置的关系，喜马拉雅宏大的规模令其显得渺小而被人们所忽略。相比于中国其他产区（如拉菲庄园投资建立葡萄园的中国东部山东地区），玛纳斯地区的优势在于其地势特点导致了低湿度和低病害率。不过这里的劣势也很明显，那就是种植农必须在秋季进行非常费时费力的葡萄植株掩埋工作，以帮助其度过寒冷的冬季。

还有一个合作项目正在云南省靠近西藏边界的地区进行，那就是圣艾米利永(St-Emilion)一级酒庄(first growth)白马庄园(Chateau Cheval Blanc)和路威铭轩(LVMH)的拥有者与当地一位投资者的合作项目。目前看来这个项目最为漂亮，与世隔绝、高海拔和雪域高原是它独有的特色。另外，这里纬度很低，所以冬天可以不用为葡萄园做防护措施——野性的东方气质(Wild East)果然非浪得虚名。

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译者/马钊