It was expected that it would take another 5 to 10 years for Chinese wines to reach world class level.

The efforts for quality are awesome in China, and now the best Chinese wines are achieving world recognition and respect.

Jiabeilan 2009 red wine from China Chateau Helan Qingxue has now received the Decanter World Wine Awards prestigious Trophy.

It was announced in London on May 17, 2011. Only 13.000 bottles were produced of this Cabernet dry red wine, in Ningxia province in North Central China, on the Silk Road. The wine used to retail for 20 Euros if you bought it in Ningxia.It will become much more expensive.

The winemaker is Mr.LI Demei since 2006. He is wine consultant to six different wineries in China, and lectures at the Beijing University of Agriculture. He did post graduate studies at the prestigious Enita de Bordeaux in 2001. His next dream is to make the best Pinot Noir in China.

Li Demei, Ch’ng Poh Tiong, Fuchsia Dunlop and Edouard Cointreau celebrated on April 24 this marvelous wine at a fantastic dinner with Chef Da Dong in Beijing. This wine had already won the top rating for Chinese wines in the Rubis Award "Top 100 wines in China" tasting in January 2010.

Jiabeilan also reached the highest price for a Chinese wine at the auction during the "Wine in China" magazine banquet for Chinese New Year.

A bottle of Jiabeilan 2009 was offered by Edouard Cointreau on May 6 in Cognac to Michel Chasseuil for his rare wine collection, the largest in the world, as described in "100 Extraordinary Bottles" (Glènat), to be published in English by Tectum in the Fall of 2011. The book entered the Gourmand Wine Books Hall of Fame at the latest Paris "Gourmand Awards".

Besides Ningxia wines, the tasting in Cognac included Cofco – Chateau Junding, from Yantai, Shandong. Its wine maker Mr.Shao Xue Dong is from Qingdao, Shandong, as well as Li Demei, and they went to school together! Michel Chasseuil fell in love with the red Chateau Junding Glory 2006, and agreed that the white Glory 2008 was the best white wine from China. This was the first tasting of China best wines in France, filmed for a special show by China Food Television, based in Qingdao.

 

　

 

Find out more

 

about the wines of

 

Chateau Junding

 

on their website:

 

www.nava.cn