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By Jim Boyce

(Note: Sorry for the delay. This blog went offline several days for — to me — unknown reasons and now is back for — to me — unknown reasons. The mysteries of life.)

These are wines with the highest scores in the Grape Wall Challenge 2012. The judges were Chinese consumers who are casual wine drinkers. They tasted 40 wines — 20 red and 20 white — that retail for under rmb100 per bottle and ranked each as “love it“, “like it“, “don’t like it” or “hate it“.

Grape Wall contributor Nicolas Carre and I separately compiled the results, then compared our findings to make sure they were consistent.

Once again, we had issues with some of prices on the submitted wines and had to disqualify one wine that ranked in the top four. I’ll post separately about this and about some interesting findings from the challenge, including which wines scored multiple “love it” responses, written comments from the judges, and more.

Top Red Wines

(Retail Less Than RMB100: 20 entries)

1. Concha y Toro ‘Sunrise’ Merlot (Chile): rmb96, from Summergate

1. Two Oceans Cabernet Sauvignon-Merlot 2011 (South Africa): rmb88, from ASC

3. KWV Pinotage 2011 (South Africa): rmb98, from China Wines & Spirits

3. Helan Mountain ‘Classic’ Merlot 2011 (China): rmb80, from Pernod Ricard

Top White Wines

(Retail Less Than RMB100: 20 entries)

1. Rudolf Muller Riesling 2010 (Germany): rmb97, from MQ

2. Long Country Sauvignon Blanc 2011 (Chile): rmb88, from East Meets West

3. Angove ‘Butterfly Ridge’ Riesling-Gewurtztraminer 2011 (Australia), rmb98, from Mercuris

4. 1749 Sauvignon Blanc VDP 2011 (France): rmb99, from East Meets West

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