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Happy to reach the Middle Empire, we wanted to resolve here a triple enigma:
find out if this territory could be at the same time the cradle of the world viticulture,
the next big producer of wine and the future more influential consumer market.
Unfortunately, the country of the abacus was about to show us its dark and grotesque side,
so much the Chinese socialism got along without complex with an ultra-liberal totalitarianism.
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On our bikes, we discovered the Forbidden City and Tiananmen square. During our excursions in
Beijing, we were the disenchanted observers of the rough town planning which was sacrificing
the historical Hudong districts in the name of the Olympic Games 2008.
These scenes reminded us of the same devastating and deliberated excesses on the Great wall
and on the Chinese forest. Lucid, we decided that despite all the fundamental obstacles towards
human rights, we should grab any opportunity to learn about this country.
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Its cultural and medical inheritance remained exalting, its calligraphic and gastronomic wealth fascinating.
Far from the tasteless forgeries, the authentic Chinese cuisine was the most sophisticated that we never experienced.
This culinary wealth made us understand the subtlety, the variety and the complexity of the products and of
the cooking methods. We also noticed that the habits and customs of the service and the gambe,
the ritual bottoms up, radically went againt our sacrosanct habit of matching food and wine.
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The Sino-French Demonstration Vineyard had officially been created by our two governments.
By forming the Chinese
executives to the modern viticulture and winemaking, it represented a true cultural revolution.
The introduction of certain vines, such as the marselan created by the French National Institute
for Agronomic Research, was tested there. Resisting to oïdium and to botrytis, it allowed to
diversify the aromatic palette of wines, still largely concocted with table grapes
and some foreign imported bulk wines.
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Prodigious territory embracing four time zones and about 10 million km²,
China counted nevertheless only 300 wineries.
With the help of
consultants and importers, we were able to reach these wineries, as a rule closed.
Two thirds of its wine production was made by the following giant
companies: Great Wall, Dynasty and Changuy.
Vineyards were located in Hebei around Beijing and in Shandong near Yantai.
The quality oriented Grace in Pingyao, the plantations on the North Korean border and the vineyard
of Suntime in the western, distant and dry Xinjiang were considered as exceptions.
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This localization had highly been limited by the relief of the Himalaya and the desert
plateaus of Internal Mongolia. The large oriental alluvial plains, made fertile by numerous deltas
and regulated by the Yellow Sea were more suitable for agriculture.
However, winters were so harsch that man had to adapt himself in this hostile environment.
The pruning technique was thought in such a way that the aste was kept close to the ground.
A complete burying of vines under 2 feet of ground had to replace the usual chaussage.
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The first customer of the wine groups remained curiously the government. The 30 to 40 million other
potential end consumers were the urban, male élite of the nation.
Wine was drunk in the metropolises of Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Chengdu.
In bars and casinos, this vector of recognition without any Epicurean connotation, was a way to
show off as a member of the Party or the army. To display the superiority of his social status,
the alternative was without ambiguity: a Chinese or a Bordeaux wine.
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Hebei: Sino-French demonstration vineyard, Rongchen,
Great Wall -
Shandong: Suntime -
Shanxi: Grace Vineyard.
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china
forbidden city in Beijing
Tiananmen square under the look of Mao Tzedong
young shoot in a mouth in Shanxi
Beijing lotus in the summer palace
Grace vineyard
watering of the vines in Pingyao
