Chinese wines beat Bordeaux in Beijing blind-tasting

Wines from the remote Chinese region of Ningxia have beaten top Bordeaux châteaux at a blind-tasting in Beijing. A group of five French and five Chinese wine experts ranked four wines from the sparsely-populated north-western autonomous region above all the Bordeaux entrants.

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The jury sampled five wines from each region and selected a Cabernet Sauvignon from the Grace vineyard as their highest-scoring choice and three other Ningxia wines followed.

Cabernet Sauvignon is one of the grapes used in the production of Bordeaux.

France had to wait until the fifth place was awarded to a 2009 Lafite Barons de Rothschild from Bordeaux’s Médoc.

Wednesday’s decision echoed the famous 1976 “Judgement of Paris” wine-tasting organised by British wine-merchant Steven Spurrier. Then wines from California beat French wines, although the same result has not been repeated at all subsequent tastings.

The winning Chinese wines all cost between 200 and 400 RMB (24-48 euros). The fifth-placed Barons de Rothschild cost 350 RMB but would also face China’s 48 per cent tariff on imported wine.

Fine wine has taken off in China in the last few years and Chinese drinkers are particularly fond of Bordeaux to the point where the country has become the region’s largest export customer.

Many Chinese consumers are attracted to the prestige of the Bordeaux label, with some interest in Burgundy apparently awakening, but high-quality home-grown wines could provide some competition.

Most Chinese-made wine is of poor quality but wine-buffs have hailed some good ones, notably from Ningxia.

Moët Hennessy, the wine a spirits arm of French luxury producers LVMH, is to plant a vineyard to produce sparkling wine.

And Wednesday’s tasting was inspired by a Ningxia wine wining best Bordeaux-style wine over 10 pounds (12 euros) at the Decanter World Wine Awards in London this year.

"Wine is not a new thing in China, but we are at the very start of China's fine wine story," said the organiser of Wednesday's event, Jim Boyce, who runs the wine blog www.grapewallofchina.com.

But, he admitted, Ningxia is probably in the lead because “a lot of the winemakers there have been trained in Bordeaux".