A New Beginning
As many of you know, I closed Baoism last month. A difficult decision, but one with no regrets. I’d like to think we went out on top, I learned an immense amount, but most importantly, we made many people happy with our food. Baoism was my first experience managing, and my first time starting a business. I built a team that took on running a restaurant together, and of course all the crazy challenges associated. I learned where my strengths are, where I need to improve, and also where I need help. I learned how to conceive and design a product from scratch, and I learned to love the iterative process of development. Baoism lives on in the memories of our fans, but in also in all the things it’s given me. Certainly, I am a better person for my three years of Baoism.
This new project started, like for many others, with a deep love for wine. August, 2015 I was in the midst of opening my restaurant (clearly, I’m prone to crazy ventures), after two years of pop ups around Shanghai and searching for a location. As a last bit of rest before going down the rabbit hole, I went down to Yunnan province, where my family maintains a small holiday home at the foot of the Yulong Snow Mountain, about 20 mins from Lijiang.

Kind of looks like Central Otago doesn’t it?

Like many winemaking regions it’s a stunning place, with an indescribable energy. I’m not one for new agey stuff, but coming back to this place always left me feeling alive and rejuvenated. Maybe it’s the alkaline drinking water from a glacier atop the mountain, or just the incredible food, but for all these reasons and many more, Yunnan is my happy place.
On this particular trip, I noticed local workers digging out fist size granite looking stones from the ground surrounding our village to pave roads and build walls. I reasoned that these must be quite free draining soils. I asked a friend from the village if ever during the rainy season (July-August, before veraison thankfully, but more on that later) there might be any puddling on the ground, his answer, “never”. With my limited knowledge of winemaking/viticulture, I reasoned that these soils, combined with cool temperatures, and intense sun from our elevation (2800m) might allow for some decent wine to be made. My interest was piqued.
I started asking around in Shanghai for expert advice and was quickly introduced to David Tyney and NZ based Australian, who won both the red and white portions of the Ningxia Wine Challenge a few years back. David expressed interest in this project immediately, having made wine for another winery in the same province that had planted 33 ha of Vidal before his arrival (only in China — but that’s another story).
After my restaurant had found it’s feet, David and I flew down to Yunnan to dig up some soils samples from unused land on slopes around the village, and to put in a weather station to collect data throughout the growing season. Oh, we also drank a lot of wine. I call this “benchmarking”. All in the name of education right?

After a year and half of working furiously in the kitchen, building a business, and also finishing my wset 3s, I turned my attention back to the vineyard project as we had gathered enough data from our own weather station, and the local 5 year averages to paint a general picture of feasibility. In an otherwise a very dry area, our biggest challenge is looking to be a large rain spike in July, which comes down significantly in august, falling to ~25mm in October during harvest (this year and also 5 year village average). As a reference, the 5 year average of rainfall in beaune in October September is above 50mm, and Bordeaux is between 80–100mm. Our average growing season temperatures are very closely aligned with Beaune, with a good and wide diurnal range. Sunshine hours are a little down relative to other regions in July/August due to cloud cover, but they grow to match 5 year Beaune averages in September, and even to surpasse 5 year averages in Beaune, Bordeaux, and Marlborough in October. With the intensity of our high elevation sunshine, we feel that this won’t be a problem (I get a nice tan with just 20 minutes of Yunnan sun, even when it’s cloudy, maybe a light toast in wine speak?).
Soils look good — our soil analysis confirmed the presence of stones, primarily chert from being on a layer of glacial deposit, as well as loam and clay. One potential site had low PH, but otherwise all had the right levels of organic matter, CEC, phosphorous, nitrogen, zinc, copper, manganese etc that, on paper, equate to free draining, infertile soils, which will help to control vine vigor in the rainy season. Most importantly, the rains are most concentrated before veraison, which means that (fingers crossed) our fruit won’t be affected by plumping or dilution.
David, Simon Clark (a viticulturalist friend of David’s in Marlborough) and I flew to Yunnan again this month to take a final look at soil composition, and to finalize site selection. We spent some time walking through the potential sites and digging in.

As you can see from the photo that there’s only a thin layer of topsoil, below that is a layer of loam mixed with rock, then a clay bedpan laden with small stones below. Simon’s reaction upon seeing this was, “this is amazing, you can’t ask for better soils, especially with the rainfall here.” Sweet music to my ears!
With the rainfall, disease will be our biggest challenge. Seeing the sites, Simon and David believe that we can combat this with an organic spray program, good canopy management, and arranging the rows of vines in an SE orientation, allowing beneficial airflow through the vines from the northerly wind that comes through the region. I’m sure we’ll learn much much more about the challenges and solutions as we progress. Of course, we drank plenty, this time our benchmarks were a 2010 Chambolle village from Taupenot Merme, a 2012 1er Beaune du Chateau from Bouchard pere et fils, a 2013 1er Chassagne Montrachet by PYCM, a 2009 JJ Prum Wehlener Sonnenuhr Spatlese, and a 2007 Thierry Allemand Cornas Chaillot. Delicious!
So what’s next? I’ve decided to start with first experimental plot of 3.5–5 hectares broken into smaller blocks (depending on how negotiations go in securing land). I want to compare terraced plots on gentler slopes, to a steeper plot behind the house. Importing vines is looking to be quite bureaucratic, with distinct challenges specific to a country that does not have a developed wine industry nor established channels to import vines. We’ve found a Kiwi who’s lived and worked in Yunnan for the last 10 years on government related orchard and table grape projects, and has experience importing agricultural products of this nature. As you can expect, legal regulations aren’t always well defined in China, and enforcement can be variable. Experts with relationships, who know how to most efficiently navigate the system become crucial. But as nurseries aren’t well stocked this time of year, it looks as though our first planting this year (fingers crossed) will be a patchwork of imported grafted vines, cuttings from other vineyards in China, maybe some from Chinese nurseries, and maybe cuttings from other places (you get the idea).
My first love is my wife, (we got married this fall), followed by Red burgundy (surprise, surprise! Dujac is my favorite) and PN in general, followed by Syrah of the Northern Rhone. I love White Burgundy in the style of PYCM and in the last two years I’ve also fallen for German Riesling, Barolo, and Chenin from Savennieres. I want to focus on Pinot, Chardonnay and Syrah, but as an untested region, I want to plant a few rows of Riesling, Chenin and Nebbiolo just to see how they turn out. We’re keeping things small and equipment/capital expenditure limited as this first plot is primarily a viability study. Everything looks promising on paper, but my dream is to make a Chinese wine that one day might change people’s minds about my country — a wine that is delicious, elegant, balanced and unique all at once. Long term, I want to learn to make wine with its own sense of confidence, that can reflect the amazing place that Yunnan is. As an untested region, I need to carefully study what varietals will survive, which are viable, and which will thrive.
As a trained chef, I also know that I need to further study the craft of winemaking. I’ve closed my restaurant to focus on this full time. I plan on working harvests in France and Aus/NZ each year as the plots are established, as well as starting my WSET diploma this fall.
Currently I’m busy sourcing vines from Chinese nurseries (a challenge in itself), and I’m headed to Aurum Winery in Central Otago, NZ in April to work this year’s harvest, pick some grapes and hopefully make some good Pinot.