By Jim Boyce

It isn’t everyday one gets to taste a German Merlot in Beijing. Luckily, I write away at wine and thus end up hanging out with trade people, including Stefan Fleischer, who works at Palette and whose family makes wine in Germany.

At a recent dinner at Caf̩ Europa, he brought a bottle of the family wine Р2003 Weingut der Stadt Mainz Merlot Barrel No. 2.

This fruit-driven wine has black plum and some chocolate, and, as another imbiber at our table noted, cola on the nose. It really opens up after 30 minutes and offers lots of fruit, a light to medium body, and a decent finish.

Good times!

Though it isn’t available in Beijing, I mention it because hanging around the wine scene means getting to try a great many wines, whether they be Slovenian wine, a range of Chinese wines, 100 different 2004 Bordeaux Grand Cru, a portfolio of 100 wines, or, the occasional German Merlot.

As Campbell Thompson wrote in an earlier post, this is a taster’s paradise.

Grape Wall’s Yvonne Chiong with The Fleischer (Photo: SF)

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