Can it: Non-bottled bubbly in Beijing

By Jim Boyce

Last week, the topic was sparkling wine from Champagne, this week it is sparkling wine from Chile, served in a… can. A half-dozen people met at Fubar in Beijing on Saturday night to try this sparkler and four other wines with Bennett Reiss of Mir Global Marketing, a newcomer to the local scene. A few points about this Sauvignon Blanc / Chardonnay sparkling wine in a can:

– It packs a punch: While the can only holds 250 ml, it contains 12.5 percent alcohol, which means one of these un-tabbed wines has the inebriating power of about two regular-sized bottles of local beer.

– It is portable: This makes it useful as an alternative to canned beer at, say, a hot dog stand or burger joint, on picnics, or even at clubs where the can would be easy to carry and not, by the slip of the hand, transformed into shards of glass.

– It is environmentally friendly: According to the distributor, the cans are made from recycled materials.

– It tastes, well, decent. I expected a can of flavored fizz, as I have found with some “sparkling wines” in a can available at 7-Eleven and such places. With this one, I found nuttiness on the nose and a tight mousse, some citrus ,and a touch of bitterness in the body. Is it going to rival Bollinger? No. But if affordable, it would do as a single-serve sparkling wine.

Note: We also tried the canned Sauvignon Blanc. I found it floral, fruity, and a bit syrupy, and would not have guessed it was that grape variety. And we tried a Chardonnay 2008, Malbec 2008, and Malbec Reserve 2008 (I think that was the year) from Argentina. I found the fruity reserve the best, with the Chardonnay too buttery and a bit flat and the Malbec a bit unbalanced.

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