If asked to name the most intriguing Chinese wines of the past two years, I would rank the tea-infused Chardonnay bubblies by Lingering Clouds right up there.
Creative. Vibrant. Delicious. Fairly priced. With gorgeous labels.
Winemaker Johnny Liu has now launched the third vintage of these tea-infused treats and what began as a three-wine experiment in 2022, featuring jasmine, oolong and longjing, has expanded to seven and grown in quality.
Most impressive is how Liu expresses the essence of a given tea. The Jasmine has all that telltale exotic floral greenness while the oolong is richer, smoother and more mature and the White Peony is vibrant, fruity and effervescent. The black tea is dry and captures the tannins of those fully fermented leaves.
I’ve heard some in the trade, namely, those from a European wine background, scoff at such products. But in a world that stresses localization, I think wines that pay tribute to such a quintessentially China specialty as tea is a wonderful idea.
And it is truly one of those east-west fusions.
To wit, when China and Europe signed an agreement in 2021 to protect each other’s “geographical indications”, over half of Europe’s list of 100 was related to wine, from Barolo and Bordeaux to Rioja and Tokaj.
Not China’s. That list had 17 specifics kinds of tea chosen for protection.
Perhaps in a market thus far difficult to crack for wine producers—per capita consumption is a half-liter at best and the number of regular drinkers is pitifully small—we should consider how traditional tastes of a billion-strong people might help.
And for those who seek professional validation, Shuai Zekun, senior editor for jamessuckling.com, gave high scores to two of the wines—the oolong and yellow tea infusions—and said the rest offered quality across the board.
In a strange twist of fate, these tea-infused wine have export potential. I’ve had numerous readers of my China wine newsletter ask how to import them—in fact, they are the most requested wines of the past two years.
As for my own experience, I’ve now had these wines dozens of times, including at my own events, from a Chinese New Year get-together to a tasting of local bubblies to a meeting with a visiting U.S. celebrity chef to a tasting of Chinese pet-nats at Wine to Asia in Shenzhen in May. And last weekend, with one of Beijing’s top restaurateurs, who praised the oolong in particular.
To be fair, these wines also have a special place in my part. I first visited Lingering Clouds just over two years ago, on my way to Yinchuan airport after a particularly difficult ten-day Ningxia trip—complicated by the COVID situations—when I felt like something had been lost.
“Today feels like the end of something. A final day to ten years since I got involved in Ningxia’s wine scene,” I wrote.
But it also turned out to be a beginning. I watched Liu, who came to Ningxia with zero winemaking experience and was following his gut, go from tank to tank and show his wines.
“Tasting his new creations, holding those alluringly hued wines to the light, hearing the ideas and stories behind them – I felt the same excitement as when trying, nearly 20 years ago now, Grace Cabernet Franc or Dragon Seal ‘Huailai Reserve.’”
Two years later, these wines are still exciting, and given Liu says he is dedicated to innovation, we can expect much more from someone who with wine and tea is squeezing the best out of two worlds.
You can find all seven of Lingering Clouds tea-infused wines, plus its other pet-nats, on jd.com.
(I’m calling these wines Cha-rdonnarys as “Cha” is the name of tea in Chinese.)
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