介绍:
Sitting in the quiet and mountainous northwestern Beijing, is Chateau SunGod where leading winemaker GreatWall, one of the most established wine brands in China, is produced.
Li Changzheng is the deputy manager of the chateau. He says winemaking in China still heavily relies on foreign imports, including wine barrels which account for at least 90 percent of all the barrels in the chateau.
The modern wine industry is still young in China. However, wine making in China can be traced back to as early as 2-thousand years ago.
"China has a long history of making wines. Winemakers here already mastered the techniques 2-thousand years ago. Wine played an important part in social life from Han dynasty all the way down to Qing dynasty. There are many poems depicting wines including those well-known sentences by Li Bai."
The chateau owner says they have always been trying to blend China's rich wine culture into the daily operations of modern wineries.
Even so, it is undeniable that China's wine making industry is still not capable to stand up to European and American standards nowadays.
Li Changzheng admits there are very few quality production areas in China that can compare with those world renowned names.
"Only the chateaus sitting in a solid and influential production area can stand out. All sold-out wine brands have matured technologies and strong legacies. It is clear that most of the leading wine brands today come from renowned production areas like France's Burgundy and Bordeaux."
Li says the Yanqing-Huailai River Valley where his chateau is located is such a quality production area. The chateau has also introduced a quality management system by limiting the production of special grape varieties to maintain their quality.
Apart from the valley, there are several other quality production regions in China, including Shandong in the east, as well as Ningxia and Xinjiang in the northwest.
Chinese winemakers are also trying to import quality grape varieties and know-how via purchasing chateaus worldwide. There are 83 chateaus in Bordeaux owned by Chinese investors and China is the largest grape export destination there.
However, veteran European winemakers attending a recent grape conference say it is still not enough for Chinese winemakers to realize their dream.
Therese Ponz Szymanski, General Manager of Chateau Berthenon in France, says detail is the key to success.
"The most important thing is before. I mean, if you don't work very well in the vineyards, you won't have nice grapes. If you don't have nice grapes, you will have no good wines. Everything right from the beginning up to the end is important. So you have to take care of your vineyards, you have to be careful when you harvest, when you are labeling your wine, and when you sell it you have to find good partners, not to accept anythings, to follow your rules, and to be nice with your customers."
Nadia Curto is the owner of Curto Marco in Italy. She is the third generation of her family's wine brand which started their business after the Second World War. She says respect and passion are also important.
"We love very much of our work, and we love our land, we respect the field, we respect the nature, I think it's our soul, our style of working with passion. We work a lot by hands, under the same condition as the past. When the vines grow in a natural way, we maintain the same condition; the vines give out good grapes, very rich of flavor. So we can produce good wines."
Winemakers often view themselves as "artists". For many of them, their job is more about creating art than it is about process management.
Oriol Guevara is a Spanish winemaker. He says wines without personality are just liquid in a bottle that doesn't make sense.
"Good winery always has personality. And that is transmitted to the wine, comes from the soil, the people, the climate, the site where it is. That is inside the bottle, and then, you have to have someone to transmit that to the public. We have always a story behind every bottle or every winery."
For many winemakers like Oriol, each bottle of wine is telling a story, and each winemaker is creating a legend. Their focus and dedication make better wines. Like Chateau Lafite Rothschild in Bordeaux, the place has a history of more than 600 years.
Compared with world renowned wine brands, GreatWall is relativley young, being only 35 years old, however it is already one of the oldest Chinese wine brands.
Li Changzheng says he believes the history of a chateau does not necessarily decide whether it can make good wines.
"Although we are only 35 years old, we can still make quality wines. Like some young but renowned chateaus in the United States' Napa can make the best wines in the world."
Just like Li Changzheng, Chinese winemakers are trying to make good wines by learning from others and exploring the true meaning of wine making by themselves.
