Wine is in the middle

I had been thinking that an interesting business to get into in China could be wine importing
(maybe interesting for me to think about and for someone else to do…). Wine is becoming increasingly popular in China. However, I have had a few glasses of wine from some high-end people, and I couldn’t tell if it just wasn’t that great, or if it just really did not pair with the food it was being served with.

Since China seems especially open to European styles, I thought maybe this would lead to the eventual acceptance of cheeses and normal bread (not cake-bread…) as being important to pair with the wines.

Then I found out that food pairing isn’t really a concern for Chinese wine-drinkers.

At the Women’s Day dinner, we had gotten on the topic of raisins -> California -> wine, so I asked Wang老师 about wine in China, and how people paired food with wine (the Asian flavor palette strikes me as a little difficult to mix wines with).

“Wine is in the middle,” Wang老师 said, “Beer is too weak, and the 白酒 is too strong.” (白酒, bai2jiu3, white rice wine, famous for noxious potency – a good explanation: Baijiu, on Shards of China)

“Does anyone try to pair wine with food?” I asked.
“Oh no!” she replied in good humor, “It doesn’t matter!” (没关系！ -mei2guan1xi)

Two-buck Chuck could make a fortune here.