Mike Bennie reports on the buzz created by a string of natural wine events in Shanghai – and says that it feels like a quiet revolution is occurring.

I read The Week That Was and was delighted to see the report from Matt Deller MW about ProWein in Shanghai, and felt like I would add some additional insights, having been in China for presenting and masterclass work through the previous week, and as an attendee of ProWein.

I caught Matt briefly at ProWein, had a few swigs of wine with Kym Teusner, glugged a few with Bertie Stevens, said hello to the Wirra team, necked a dash of Hunter Semillon and generally roamed around with interest.

There was a sense of energy and anticipation about it all – I went early day one.

The new funky-green Wine Australia livery looked pretty snazzy.

Australia had nicer glassware than most people.

There was plenty of RM Williams gear and a few appropriate-to-winemaker gilets being worn.

G’day mates, who has the Coopers Pale stash? Bonza.

Anyway, for the meat on the bones of this yarn.

I was asked to come to China to do various speaking engagements across four days prior to ProWein.

These events of course can be considered niche in some respects.

This was the language used by Wine Australia when I approached them for support to get a range of Australian wines to showcase in my varied roles across the week.

Fair enough.

ProWein and getting loads of wine moving is the focus of a limited budget.

The sense that getting the export engines really revving through bigger names and traditional channels is sensible.

But, geez, there was something in the air that week…

My first day on the ground had me pouring wine at a natural wine party/festival called ‘Bunch’ held on a Friday night in a sleek warehouse with its own mood lighting.

Alongside a breadth and width of wine stalls there were DJs, food vendors from some of Shanghai’s hippest venues, bands, art installations and the event even included a speed chess tournament (say what?).

Fizzing, hazy, pungent, crunchy wines

It was raucous, fun and distinctly cosmopolitan with the vibrant, beautiful, hissing, fizzing, hazy, pungent, crunchy wines being poured with abandon.

I snuck some Tassie wine into the tasting from my luggage as the organisers gave me a table to rep Australia as best I could with the small scale smuggle I had performed.

I did it for shits and giggles, though I don’t come to much without a bit of a sophist agenda; I really wanted this audience to see more, but alas, I couldn’t get a hand in shipping more wine samples to do this quasi-Aus wine ambassador gig.

There’s always next year.

The organisers expected 200 people.

By the time 500 punters had rolled in halfway through the event, they had to call time on letting people in.

Fun.

The following two days I was engaged in masterclasses at HolaVino (a wine fair dedicated solely to orange wines) and Ziran (a natural wine showcase of importers and producers) – just about every natural wine importer in China was there bolstered by many European winemakers alongside.

Masterclasses anchored by luminaries of the natural wine world included Sasa Radikon (Radikon, Italy), John Wurdeman (Pheasants Tears, Georgia), Franz Strohmeier (Strohmeier, Austria) and our very own Tom Shobbrook from Eden Valley as the sole Australia winemaker in the flesh.

The event was packed.

Sommeliers, wine buyers, restaurateurs, bar owners and importers were giddy with the energy of the two day event.

Only a handful of other Australian wineries were repped.

Oh, and let’s not get into semantics of definitions of natural wine or orange wine, this is how these events were labelled by Shanghai organisers, for their audiences.

Day four of the trip I was MC for an orange wine symposium, Skin 2 Skin, organised by Debra Meiburg MW and team.

This was held in the grand ballroom of the Hyatt on the Bund for a couple of hundred trade attendees with all the requisite line-ups of glasses and interviews with winemakers, importers and high profile trade, including the vaunted Yang Lu MS, with a few other MWs in tow.

Notably, Cassidy Dart MW is a huge fan of Australian wine, and we gas-bagged a lot in our spare time about the great wines of Australia (someone sneak him some Wendouree into China next trip, please!)

Skin 2 Skin was a stately affair for a genre of wine that often gets sidelined for alleged obscurity, but here, in plain sight, a diligence to the subject matter was apparent.

Suited up sommeliers conscientiously poured wine into the various tasting line-ups.

Tasting templates adorned every table.

A sea of glasses.

A couple of very fancy PowerPoint presentations.

How to sell orange wine

Even a pretty nerdy seminar on ‘how to sell orange wine to the Chinese market’.

It looked like a Cabernet tasting but for the ruddy and amber liquids in the glass.

They even did coffee and tea in urns at the breaks.

Around this there were many follow-through events and dinners that ricocheted between lunches, dinners and late, late night suppers.

Winemakers and importers bought-out some of Shanghai’s coolest restaurants and bars, Bastard, Yayas, Charcoal, Where The Peaches Grow, Le Saleya, Forage and more.

There were so many activations I couldn’t keep up.

The youth of Shanghai were out in droves.

The Georgian wine board did a combined dinner with a masterchef from Tblisi; a modern version of a supra banquet at Shanghai’s equivalent of Arkhe or Firedoor restaurants.

The Austrians packed an achingly hip wine bar with their winemakers, and had importer/sommelier Alvin Gho (RVLT Singapore and Taiwan) and China-based Julien Boulard MW to anchor that event.

It was all go, all week.

ProWein did what ProWein does.

It looked great. It was huge. It took 15 minutes to walk from the retina scanning/face recognition entry point to the humungous halls.

The Aussie activation was busy, lots on there for sure.

But I couldn’t help but look just across the way at the Young Generation China Wine stalls that were, by my eyeballs, the busiest of all at ProWein.

This cohort is focused on not just avant garde wine, but fine wine, with strong credentials in organics and experimental wines alongside.

The rise and rise of Chinese wine is coming, in all of its walks of life.

I caught up with several Chinese winemakers, tasting through ranges of wine that ranged from curious to sophisticated – many of these winemakers have worked in Australia and taken what they’ve learned back home.

Vineyards at 2,500 metres above sea level set in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon movie set villages with organic-farmed vineyards make for epic storytelling and show-and-tell on iPhones (or is that Huawei?).

Wise words

I echo Matt Deller’s thoughts – “Interestingly, there’s an increased preference for lighter, fresher wines that convey a strong sense of place, coupled with an emphasis on sustainability and storytelling.

“Younger Chinese consumers are drawn to these attributes, especially as they seek products that align with personal values and are open to trying something different from the choices of previous generations.”

These are wise words.

This younger gen of China winemakers is onto it.

Provenance and process of wine was inherent in the conversations I had with all walks of Shanghai wine trade: from special sites, how the vineyards are farmed, the intent of wine producers, lighter hands in winemaking, drinkability, diversity of wine styles.

And wines that fit the China drinking experience with the breadth of varied cuisine in China.

And the up-and-coming are also just interested in chugging wine for fun and for colour.

Good things to keep in mind.

Approaches with a diversity of wine and smaller scale, avant garde producers seems to be a way to draw the gaze of the newer generations of wine drinkers.

This is where the gatekeepers seem to be focusing their Australian wine investigations.

I couldn’t tell you how many importers were asking for my details to clue them in on the new, progressive and boutique wines of Australia.

We love the big guys, they open doors for sure, but geewhiz, the tumble-on effect from smaller scale imports of diverse wine from Australia is surely one of the ways to crack the code.

Of course, Australian wine producers are looking for a big market activation; we want everyone to succeed from big to tall to short to small.

The floodgates opening would be a welcome thing for many struggling, absolutely.

Softly, softly this time.

I know readers will likely say that the niche here is just that, and that such reporting doesn’t really do much for the bigger picture for eagerly desired export, but as cultural commentary, perhaps this will be lip-smacking news for some.

PS: Contrary to the idea of oversupply, and of course this is a microcosm, but Tom Shobbrook’s wines came with such demand that his importer has had to put the wines on allocation in Shanghai.