Whereas Fengshou winery may have brought us wine scaled to a Chinese level, and Grace Vineyards brought us a refinement of the craft, our third winery visit has given us the history to fill in the gaps. As the first Winery in China Dragon Seal was originally founded in 1910 and offers visitors a history of Chinese winemaking museum at its production site's footsteps to better grasp the time frame.
Assistant President Kevin Yang gave us a personal tour through the Museum which starts with a French friar who converted his Beijing church's graveyard into a humble winery. Acquired by the Chinese state in 1949, the winery was (re)named Shangyi Winery of Beijing, and after a few more name swaps the winery was finally ascribed its present day name in 1987, not coincidentally the year of the Dragon. This whole story and the winemaking process itself we could imagine quite clearly with the museum's unique representation via hard working dolls.
The founding father of the original Dragon Seal winery (then named differently), and a quick view of Chinese winemaking.
Aside from this Museum, a refuge for knowledge-thirsty wine lovers, Kevin informed us that the winery is now in process of moving its head office and production site closer to the vineyards which are in the Hebei Province (about 150 km from Beijing). But why there?? (Things seemed to be going pretty smoothly with the production site located in the center of Beijing). Well, with more and more vineyards popping up in the Hebei province and in addition to its proximity to the Great Wall of China, vino-tourism in tandem with tourism in general may become the next attraction for the new region. And this is all sure to provide much promise for the future of any winery placing itself in these midst's.
This miniature gives a nice illustration of the Great wall and Dragon Seal's vineyards (but for the winery and the thousands of tourists you'll have to use your imagination!).
The brains behind the bottles, two Chinese winemakers and a head winemaker from France sculpt the 10 varietals of royal grapes the winery employs to decide the tastes of each label. And of these, while crossing through the museum we encountered Dragon Seal's pride and highest achievement, sealed in glass and cork and adorned with its exotic name: the Huailai Reserve. As we wondered about the magnitude of great taste it might offer to our pallets, our dream didn't come true... but we were by no means disappointed as we were offered a 2003 bottle for our auction! This in addition to a Dragon Seal Chardonnay 2008 has made our collection nearly complete for representing the potential Chinese wineries offer, and for the lucky winner of this wine... can we just join you for one sip???
