Wine in China
By the end of the second century BC, Han envoys had brought grape seeds from the wine-loving kingdom of Dayuan (Ferghana in modern Uzbekistan) back to China and had them planted on imperial lands near the capital Chang'an (near modern-day Xi'an in Shaanxi province).
[9] The Shennong Bencao Jing, a work on materia medica compiled in the late Han, states that grapes could be used to produce wine.
"[10] Grapes continued to be grown in the following centuries, notably in the northwestern region of Gansu, but were not used to produce wine on a large scale.
After the Tang conquest of Gaochang – an oasis state on the Silk Road located near Turfan in modern Xinjiang – in 641, the Chinese obtained the seeds of an elongated grape called "mare teat" (maru 馬乳) and learned from Gaochang a "method of wine making" (jiu fa 酒法).
China's "first modern winery" Changyu was founded in 1892 in Shandong province near the treaty port of Chefoo (now called Yantai) by the overseas Chinese entrepreneur Zhang Bishi.
Over the years, the company developed over 90 brands of alcoholic beverages, and its products won numerous awards both domestically and abroad.
However, most of its products were exported abroad in the first two decades due to the low income of the local population, and it was not until after the year 2000 when the economic boom finally provided the domestic population with sufficient disposable income to support the domestic market; this relatively recent occurrence coincided with the increased popularity of French wine in China.
[20][21] Notable wine-producing regions include Beijing, Yantai, Zhangjiakou in Hebei, Yibin in Sichuan, Tonghua in Jilin, Taiyuan in Shanxi, and Ningxia.
[22] China's Xinjiang Autonomous Region have an ancient history of viticulture going back to around the 4th Century BC, when Greek settlers brought the vine and more advanced irrigation techniques.
The Uighur home-made wine generally called "museles" (from Arabic "المثلث ", meaning "the triangle") is still being brewed by households in many villages.
Unlike wines west of Xinjiang, the brewing of museles requires crushing of local varieties of grapes by hand, then strained using the Uighur atlas silk, then boiled with amount of water equal to the juice and desired portion of sugar, until the volume of the mixture is down to the original volume of the juice, then stored in clay urns together with folk recipes varying by localities---in some counties, traditional Uighur herbal medicines, and goji, mulberries, sea-buckthorn, cloves, etc.
In September 2011, Ningxia winery Helan Qingxue won the Decanter World Wine Award's Red Bordeaux Varietal Over £10 International Trophy for its 2009 Jiabeilan, a Cabernet sauvignon blend.
[25][26][27][28][29] On 14 December 2011 in Beijing, in a competition tagged "Bordeaux against Ningxia", experts from China and France blind-tasted five wines from each region.
[32][33] In the "Bordeaux against Ningxia" wine challenge held in Beijing in October 2011, Grace Vineyard's 2009 Chairman's Reserve, a 100% Cabernet Sauvignon, was voted best.
[35] In 2009, Sotheby's reported that Hong Kong had become the world's largest market for fine wines at auction, surpassing previous leaders New York City, and London.
Meanwhile, major supermarkets have steadily increased their selection, from several domestic brands, to a wide variety of wines from around the world.
When served at a table with more than two people, similar to the style of drinking baijiu, it is typically consumed during a group toast, and often with the entire glass being finished at once.
