Grace Vineyards CEO Judith Leissner says a winemaker from Bordeaux was hired to oversee production at the Taiyuan winery in a no-expense-spared project to create a classic French wine in China

Wines made by a Hong Kong-owned vineyard in the Chinese mainland are earning rave reviews, not least from experts at the prestigious Peninsula hotel group, which has three of the vintages on its menu.

 

Grace Vineyard is located near the mainland city of Taiyuan, close to the Yellow River basin and is a no-expense-spared project to create a classic, French-style wine.

 

To that end, Hong Kong-based businessman C.K. Chan invested US$7 million in building an authentic, French-style chateau, with specialist wine-making equipment brought in from overseas. A wine-maker from Bordeaux, Gerard Colin, was hired full time to oversee production at the winery, which is now producing 500,000 bottles of wine a year, ranging in quality from table wines to special-label reserve wines.

 

Among those impressed by the quality were executives from the renowned Peninsula hotel group, who ordered three styles of wine which now feature in the restaurants and bars of The Peninsula in Hong Kong and the Peninsula Palace in Beijing.

 

Boutique winery aims for the top

 

"That was our biggest success last year," says Hong Kong-based Judy Leissner, the founder's daughter and chief executive officer of Grace Vineyards. "We were very excited about that. The Peninsula looks for quality and did a blind tasting with experts.They visited our winery and saw it themselves.

 

"We do a lot of personal service for them, blending different types for them and printing labels up to their quality - a Chinese wine is something different."

 

American-educated Ms Leissner, 27, who originally worked in an investment bank, thinks the winery's Hong Kong head office and marketing base has been a major factor in making the operation successful.

 

"A lot of wine related-information is in French or English and in Hong Kong we are exposed to both cultures," she says. "We can bring people together and we have the know-how.

 

"We went to a lot of places last year to promote the wine. Some people came because they were very curious about wine from China and wanted to know about the market. We have already started exporting to Germany and the United Kingdom, in upper class restaurants and hotels."

 

Although Grace is far from the first vineyard in China to have overseas involvement, it is the first boutique winery to make a determined stab at the top end of the market.

The owner and his daughter are adamant they are in it for the long haul, with profit a secondary motive to consistent quality.

 

"The history of it is that my father traded a lot with the French, and became very good friends with one of his regular contacts," says Ms Leissner. "When my dad went to visit they always had a glass of wine, and decided it would be great to have a winery in France or South Africa, or Australia. In the end, he decided on China.

 

"We now have 11 different types of wines and what distinguishes us from other wineries is quality. We are serious about wine: we put the chairman's name on it, and my daughter's name on it."

 

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