When we first arrived in China, I decided that it was wine hell and wanted to leave immediately.  The selection was limited and the prices were ridiculous.  I spent weeks trying to find ways to import what I wanted, but that didn’t pan out.  Of course, I was certain there were no good Chinese wines.  That much was obvious. 

I was wrong.  One day, I was in a wine store in a Nanjing shopping mall (you can see how desperate I was).  The owner showed me all of his overpriced French and Australian wines.  Finally, I asked him for the best Chinese red wine he had.  Surprisingly, he didn’t take me to the most expensive bottle.  He pointed me to a 2001 Grace Vineyards Premium Cabernet Merlot (RMB123 - about 15 bucks).  I bought one bottle and avoided opening it for a few weeks because I didn’t want to ruin a night with some rancid grapes.  We finally opened it and were really impressed.  This was a great bottle of wine.  It was our house wine until we exhausted the local supply (we’ve moved on to the 2003 vintage which is also very good).  Grace Vineyards is a winery in Shanxi province started by a Hong Kong entreprenuer.  The business is run by his daughter and a smart French guy handles the vines and the wines.  

I’d like to give you a really detailed review of all the nuances of this wine, but I don’t have a golden pallet like that marriedWineGuy.  If my wife didn’t drink all of the 2001, I’ll bring MWG a bottle and see what he thinks.  Check back in a few weeks.

In any case, if you’re in China or your local wine shop has a Chinese section (yeah, right), head straight for the Grace Vineyards.  The Tasya’s Reserve Cabernet Franc is excellent as well.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!. Rather get email notification?