As if we don’t get red faced enough off of simple rice wine.. Chateau Lafite joins Chinese ‘grand cru’ race.
Courtesy of the Guardian:
One of the most prestigious Bordeaux wine estates yesterday joined the race for a stake in China’s growing wine industry, announcing that it would invest in vineyards in the Far East to produce a “Chinese grand cru”.
Château Lafite, one of the most famous vineyards in France, is among several foreign wine producers clamouring for partnerships with Chinese state investors in Penglai on the Shandong peninsula, known as “China’s Bordeaux”. The Rothschild family which owns Château Lafite said the Chinese peninsula was “promising” and its vineyards should produce a great wine. China is tipped to become one of the world’s biggest wine producers over the next 50 years and European wine estates are keen to get a foothold in the latest new-world wine trend.
Grape wine is not new to China – archaeologists have found traces in Shandong that date back thousands of years. But the province may be coming into its own again as a wine-producing region. According to local officials, Penglai is on roughly the same latitude as Bordeaux. Its government describes wine-making as a pillar industry of the area, saying that vines cover more than 41,000 hectares and that it produces more than 80,000 tonnes of wine a year.
