Is This Bottle Corked__ The Secret Life of Wine - Kathleen Burk [71]
Genghis Khan’s grandson, Kublai Khan, who lived from 1216 to 1294, completed the conquest of China begun by his grandfather and founded the Yüan Dynasty. During his rule, the court chose grape wine (putao jiu) for the ceremony when worshipping their ancestors, while in 1291, a wine cellar was built in one of the imperial palaces. Marco Polo, in his description of his travels in the thirteenth century, wrote that “in Shanxi province grew many excellent vines, supplying a great deal of wine, and in all Cathay this is the only place where wine is produced. It is carried hence all over the country.” For reasons nobody really knows, wine fell from favor during the Ming Dynasty (1368–1644). One possible explanation was that the first Ming emperor was born in the south of China, where the weather is not conducive to the growing of grapes, and thus lacked the wine culture present in the north. As well, the duty on grape wine was raised, making it less affordable for the less wealthy.
With the coming of the Ching (or Qing) Dynasty in 1644, the popularity of wine gradually recovered, doubtless helped by the enduring belief that it had health-giving properties. Emperor K’an-hi, who ruled at the same time as Louis XIV, experimented by planting vines in different parts of the country, which confirmed that they flourished in the north but not in the subtropical south. With the nineteenth century’s influx of missionaries and invaders, however, foreign influence on the growing of grapes and the making of wine grew. In the mid-nineteenth century, Jesuit missionaries encouraged the planting of vineyards specifically to make wine for use during the celebration of the sacraments. In the late nineteenth century, French Catholic missionaries planted vineyards and made wine. During the German and Japanese occupations from the late nineteenth and into the early twentieth centuries, a winery was established by the Germans and another by the Japanese. Most important, however, was the establishing of the first modern Chinese winery. Chang Bi Shi, referred to variously as an overseas Chinese merchant or as an officer in the Qing government, returned to China in 1892 and set up the Chang Yu winery in Yantai, reportedly employing the Austrian consul as winemaker. He also introduced 150 varieties of V. vinifera from Europe, including Welschriesling, which remains of importance for the wine industry today.
It might have been thought that wine would have been a victim of the Communist victory in 1949, but this was not the case. Indeed, the government expanded the wineries: they preferred that the people drink wine rather than spirits, and they and successive governments wanted to reserve rice for food rather than allow it to be used to make rice wine. However, for reasons of economy, the grape wine was blended with water, other fruit juices, coloring, and fermented cereals, as a result of which people became confused as to what wine really was. Nowadays, it is necessary to specify grape wine.
After 1979, foreign investors were allowed to establish a modern wine industry. Substantial investment was made by a number of Western distilleries, who imported vinification equipment, V. vinifera vine cuttings, and the technical expertise needed to make the wines, and Western-style wines were produced. In the 1990s, a wine boom was sparked off when officials followed the lead of Western countries in recommending the moderate use of red wine to reduce the risk of heart disease. As a result, thousands of cases were imported and rushed onto the market, tankers of bulk wine arrived to be bottled locally, and small wineries sprang up all over China. By the mid-2000s, a number of large château-style wineries had been established.
Wine, especially champagne, is now wildly fashionable, but at the summit are the Bordeaux grands crus, including the most expensive wines of the Right