‘Canaan’ in China: Hebei Province’s Promising Wine Land

With wineries clustering around the Eastern Foothills of Helan Mountain in the mid-west of China, Ningxia may be centerstage when it comes to Chinese wines (see my previous Ningxia report and interview focusing on three boutique producers: Asia’s Answer to Bordeaux is Blossoming). But let’s not forget the excellent dry wine projects taking place in regions and provinces like Xinjiang, Hebei (including Beijing), Shandong, Yunnan, and Shanxi. They may not have as many quality producers as Ningxia, but there are a few very serious and worthy names that deserve exposure. In Huailai County of Hebei Province, an hour’s drive from Beijing, you will find Canaan Wine Estate and Domaine Franco-Chinois, two top producers from China making a series of wines including  “Chapter and Verse” (Shi Bai Pian in Chinese articulation) and the homonymous wine of “Domaine Franco-Chinois”. Both should appear on your list of must-tries from China.

With a 23-hectare vineyard, Domaine Franco-Chinois (DFC) is a familiar name to those who have been keeping an eye on domestic Chinese wines. Formerly known as Sino-French Demonstration Vineyard, it was one of the quality-wine precursors born in Sino-French cooperation between the two governments since 1997, and was officially established in 2006. In 2010, an adjacent newcomer – Canaan Wine Estate, owned by the Taiwanese entrepreneur and co-founder of HTC Corporation Cher Wang (Wang Xuehong), officially purchased DFC, and the two projects have been connected since. Today, both brands’ wines are made in the same modern winery but sourced from different vineyards.

“The two brands are operated in parallel although the wines are all vinified in the same winery, adding up to a production of over 550,000 bottles a year,” said Zhao Desheng, the acclaimed winemaker behind both wines, who has worked at DFC since 2003 after spending years in Bordeaux. Today, the 320-hectare vineyards, of which 23 hectares are dedicated to DFC and the rest to “Chapter and Verse,” produce serious wines in a serious volume that might refresh one’s overall impression of top-quality Chinese wines–that small and boutique producers usually take the helm in the game.

If you think most wines from Ningxia have a very prominent New World style with rich, voluptuously sweet fruit, Canaan and DFC’s wines are much more restrained even they come with a modern sensibility. They are the eclectic, well-rounded wines that are more borderless than bounded, and the best provide a sense of place. Canaan’s Chapter and Verse and DFC’s top wines here show an interplay of depth, broadness, and dense fruit as they hit the sweet spot of balance, reaching out for ripe, juicy fruit and polished tannin in the one direction while radiating restraint, freshness, and persistence in another.

I also recently tasted the mid-range “Mastery” of Canaan Wine Estate’s “Chapter and Verse,” whose name is a tribute to the acclaimed poet Du Fu in the Tang Dynasty who composed the poem Eight Immortals of the Wine Cup. They all showed perfect varietal characters that underscore harmony and drinkability with a riesling from young vines leading the flight — Chapter and Verse Huailai Mastery Riesling 2018 (93 points) effuses an enthralling fragrance of floral perfumes and tropical fruit on the nose with a mineral twist. Yet, all these aromatics are constrained in a bone-dry, mineral, and linear set, delivering a fascinating contrast. The 2017 vintage (92 points) shows more warm-climate characters with subtle petrol, lime, and savory notes with a fresh, chalky, and austere background. These are the rieslings I would bring to a blind tasting to wow the Germans.

The Mastery chardonnays from 2017 (91 points) and 2018 (90 points) both have transparent intensity, excellent tensions, and texture on the palate, something highly sought in a chardonnay, showing promises and potential despite their high-toned oatmeal, lees, and preserved nectarine on the nose that may have sacrificed some freshness and subtlety. Otherwise, I would have scored this duo significantly higher.

The 2017 Mastery Pinot Noir (92 points) from an elevated vineyard at around 1,000m above sea level is among China’s best pinots with its Marlborough-like purity and ethereal forestry fruit. Their Mastery Tempranillo 2014 (91 points) is a modern, youthful and flattering example full of vibe, showing strawberries, red cherry, plumy fruit adorned by some creamy oak. The  Mastery Merlot 2014 (92 points) , on the other hand, is a more classic and astoundingly good example of merlot’s varietal expression — fresh, plumy, elegantly spicy and vibrant with so much sap and succulence highlighting the purity and drinkability of the wine. Finally, Chapter and Verse Huailai Mastery Cabernet Sauvignon 2014 (92 points) delivers layers of complexity, concentration, and structure as it shows richness, typicality, and polish. It reminded me of a refined Napa cabernet.

The more I exchanged ideas with Chief Winemaker Zhao, the more I felt that it was reasonable to ascribe some of these successful varietal expressions and their eclectic styles to the clean, modern and precise winemaking that mixes different terroirs to maximize the complexity they are looking for in the glass. And of course, it is all gathered upon a relatively cooler and longer growing season over Ningxia, giving these wines a composed poise, temperament, and even class — something that the hearty and welcoming Ningxia wines need to work extremely hard to grasp.

“Our chief winemaker always asks staff in the winery to keep the floor clean and keep everything in check after we call it a day, especially during the harvest season when everything could be a bit messy here,” said Richard Li (Li Ren), general manager of Canaan Wine Estate and its two brands. He previously served as the vice president of ASC fine wines, a leading wine importer in China affiliated with Suntory Group.

And to make fresher wines without running the risk of pre-maturation (primarily for the white), the chardonnays and rieslings are harvested at night. By the time I visited the vineyard in late September, they have already finished these harvests. Everything that happens here is on the right track, so the high quality the wines deliver is no surprise. The low yield (35hl-40hl/hectare) also helps these wines age well, and none of the wines we tasted from the relatively warm and dense 2014 vintage showed any age now — from tempranillo, merlot to syrah and cabernet sauvignon, they are going to keep fledging and get more rounded in the next 3-5 years and will hold for longer.

While these beautifully clean and correct wines are great to blind taste for their impressive varietal typicity with a restrained modern touch, I could not help but expect even more from them. I greedily wanted to see some personality that focused on the nuanced, delicate and more precise allures from different terroirs, or maybe clones, yeast or other adventurously avant-garde winemaking variants. Zhao told me they have been working toward terroir-oriented wines, and it took them years to understand their land.

“Now we try the best we can to separate different plots and vinify them independently,” says Zhao, referencing their attempts at micro-vinification, playing with different vineyards (soils) and various altitudes from 500m-1,000m. This helped them attain the precision and finesse that you can taste from these wines — harmony and typicity are at the core, and the best are starting to show the depth, refined complexity and the drinkability that I seek from the top players. But all that is easier planned than done. Everything had to started from scratch.

As early as 1999, DFC was the first Chinese winery to plant marselan thanks to its Sino-French Demonstration Vineyard history. They first produced a varietal marselan in 2001. Today, the grape is one of the most successful newcomers that became popular throughout a few major Chinese wine regions, from Shandong to Hebei, Ningxia, and Shanxi.

Richard Li proudly told me that around 90-95% of the seedlings of marselan in China come from DFC whose first vine arrived from France. The crossing of grenache and cabernet sauvignon thrives in a few regions in China where growing seasons are warmer and produces wines with freshness on top of ripe and voluptuous dark-berry fruit. With marselan’s recent inclusion as a permitted variety in Bordeaux, its edge in the ever-warming climates worldwide is just starting to show.

The continental climate in Hebei with monsoon seasons means that the summers in Huailai are warm and often rainy, while winters are dry and cold, making burying vines in the soil an extra but necessary cost for the producers here (it is the same in Ningxia). Rows of tall trees were also planted around the vineyards as a windbreak to protect the vines and soils from the strong winds that can bring sandstorms in the spring.

“Huailai’s proximity to Beijing is a double-edged sword for us. While it is close to a major market and the capital of the country, making our wines more accessible to the trade, consumers and opportunities, the human labor cost, however, is very high,” added Zhao, as he estimated the cost (manual and mechanical) for the burial of each vine is more than RMB1 ($0.15). This cost doubles when the vines get unearthed in the upcoming spring. As an estimation, Canaan and DFC cover roughly 700,000 vines. So, we are talking about an extra cost of at least $200,000 every year.

Despite the cost, I see the mid-range “Mastery” wines of Chapter and Verse only retail around RMB180-250 ($25-$35) online in China, representing excellent value for very high-quality wines. It is proof of how far Chinese wines have progressed in the past decade. Zhao also shared the same impression.

“The general quality of Chinese wine has improved immensely. The domestic wines now are completely different things from 10 or 15 years ago,” commented Zhao as he recalled his bad experiences with some of the Chinese wines he had after returning from France. Fortunately, now many Chinese wineries have grown “mature” enough to finally start offering quality at a very reasonable price tag. 

Similar sentiments were expressed during earlier talks I had with winemakers in Ningxia. I also noticed a more rounded wine appreciation ability from people who make the wines, who have also honed their winemaking judgment through tasting more and learning from a broader spectrum of styles. This seems particularly useful during the blending process if they don’t hire a consultant. More fundamentally, many Chinese winemakers are jumping out of their comfort zones to embrace a more diverse array of wine styles.

Today, the job of winemaking is not merely to make wine behind closed doors. Increasingly, winemakers are stepping out of their small piece of “terroir” as they actively seek inspiration not just locally, but also from around the world. But to really embrace the world, the prominent wineries with more volume and resources also need to walk out and export, to let the world taste, judge, and maybe get inspired by the quality Chinese wines too. Zhao assured me that they would export soon, although most of their sale is allocated to the on-trade business. It would be a shame if they don’t, I said.

We covered another winery named after the biblical reference “Canaan” — the land of promises – in our earlier Ningxia report. Probably due to the German identity of the owner and to avoid confusion and successfully register a trademark, the Kanaan Winery (Chinese as 迦南美地) in Ningxia has substituted “K” for “C” in its English name. Both owners of the wineries are devout Christians and no doubt, their wines are proof of the existence of a vinous promised land in the east of Asia. Like almost everything else that is rapidly changing in China, wine development has happened over a period of 10 or 15 years, a blinding pace when compared to many in winegrowing history. It will be fascinating to see if this development can continue. 

– Zekun Shuai, associate editor in Beijing

The following wines include those tasted last November as well as eight newly added wines from Canaan Wine Estate. To reiterate, Domaine Franco-Chinois is an independent brand owned by the Estate and is operated by the same team.