Pale, burnt amber colour. Smells strongly of burnt
walnuts, with bitter citrus peel on the dry finish. There is an aftertaste
faintly suggestive of plum. Not as thick or as salty as the other rice wines
we’ve had; the age probably has something to do with that. The complexity
rewards time; suggestions of ginger snap biscuits, and tea and coffee dregs.
The finish becomes increasingly bitter, almost barky. I think I couldn’t
distinguish this from a well-aged Amontillado.
We only drank this cold; it seems the Chinese only
take their rice wine hot in winter, but by now we were in sultry Shanghai, in
the restaurant Fu1088, which occupies all the floors of a beautifully tiled
European style villa in the French Concession. Most of the dining is done in
private rooms scattered upstairs and downstairs throughout the villa. With snooty
waiting staff slipping into our room every so often, and a piano plunking away
somewhere like the bar room piano in a western, and lilies on the mahogany
sideboard, and stippled glass in the door window, I rather felt like I was
having dinner in a BBC period drama.
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