The Chinese don’t appreciate wine. They drink it with lemonade! As someone who now goes to China twice a year, I must have heard this kind of thing hundreds of times. Until recently, I used to dismiss references to wine-with-Sprite on factual grounds. Some Chinese wine drinkers might add soft drinks to their Bordeaux in the privacy of their own homes or the KTV karaoke clubs to which foreigners are very rarely invited, but neither I nor any of the expats or frequent visitors to whom I’ve spoken have ever seen anyone doing so over the last decade.
But focusing on the truth of the story is missing the point. What’s so wrong with ‘improving’ the palatability of a wine by adding another beverage? After all, nobody ever raises an eyebrow when a waiter in a Michelin-starred restaurant proposes blending blackcurrant liqueur and Champagne - as long as he calls it a Kir Royale. Jerry Thomas’s classic 1862 bartender’s handbook, How to Mix Drinks or The Bon Vivant’s Companion included a recipe for a cocktail made from Champagne, sugar, angostura bitters, and ice, and Buck’s Fizz and Mimosa orange-juice-and-Champagne cocktails have been a mainstay of London and Manhattan clubland since the 1920s. The Bellini, which substituted peach juice for orange, was invented at Harry’s Bar in Venice in 1934.
Sangria – a blend of wine, fruit juice and soda – has been enjoyed in one form or another in Spain, Portugal and South America for centuries. In 1964, it was introduced to the US at the World’s Fair in New York, and has been there ever since. And then of course there’s the hot, spiced and sweetened glühwein and mulled wine with which Europeans have warmed themselves in winter since at least the 14th century.
Type ‘wine cocktail’ into Google, and you will find links to over 500,000 websites - 100,000 more than if you had looked for “natural wine”. But which of these two subjects has had the greater dominance over conversation among wine professionals over the last few years? Revealingly, very few of the wine cocktail sites belong to wine brands, regions or distributors; most are by consumers, bloggers and popular lifestyle publications like Cosmopolitan and Food & Wine. Purists will wince at the idea of making a Paysan cocktail by blending Pinot Noir with juice, liqueur, soft drink and fruit peel, but this creation from the now closed Poste Moderne Brasserie in Washington DC impressed the editors of Food & Wine enough that they included it in their magazine.
The same publication offers instructions on how to make a ‘Beaujolais Cobbler with Raspberry Shrub’ that includes lime juice, cherry brandy and lots of fresh raspberries. The chances of finding a winemaker ready to propose the use of his wine for this kind of cocktail are vanishingly small; they’d be far more interested in recommending an appropriate Riedel glass from which to drink it. But many Beaujolais producers are struggling to sell their wine now that the market for Nouveau has slowed. A pragmatist might suggest that if makers of malt whisky and tequila selling for $100.00 a bottle don’t object to their product being used in cocktails, why should a Gallic vigneron get his culottes in a twist about his wine getting the same treatment.
A few innovative companies and individuals have grasped this nettle. Moët & Chandon has launched a Champagne to drink on ice, while the ever-imaginative Florence Cathiard in Bordeaux persuaded Perrier to collaborate in a campaign to promote Sauternes and soda in Paris clubs. Then there have been the efforts of leading US wine brands. Visitors to Sutter Home’s website, for example, are invited to make themselves a Cab Cooler by blending the winery’s Cabernet Sauvignon with Concord grape juice, cranberry juice, lemon juice and lemon-lime soda. Gallo’s Barefoot Geek Chic website brings together Malbec, ‘Cold Brew coffee Liqueur’, a ‘ginger coin’, Orgeat syrup and lemon juice. Yet cocktail-embracing wine producers remain exceptions to the rule.
One of the cleverest cocktails I’ve ever tasted combined Islay malt whisky and Lapsang Souchong tea, and was prepared by a young barman in Beijing. I’m sure he’d have had some tasty ideas for what to do with a Provence rosé or a Chilean Merlot. Maybe it’s time to encourage him and his countrymen – and wine drinkers in general – to be more relaxed about the ways they enjoy their wine.
