Chinese Rice Wine Overview

In Hong Kong, we’ve been seeking out traditional Chinese rice wines. The younger (yellow) wines are used mainly for cooking, but the more aged examples (which tend towards being the colour of soy sauce) can be very distinguished. They can be served hot or cold; hot may be against Western wine mores, but it is more traditional way to serve them, and it can be interesting to watch flavours change from sweet to more savoury as the wine cools. The cheaper (yellow) wines typically come in glass bottles, but the more aged, expensive wines all seem to be in beautiful ceramic flasks; this is potentially irritating in that one can’t see how much wine is left inside, but I think the rationale is that the ceramic conserves heat better, and so if heated, will keep the wine hotter longer. 

The best rice wine we’ve had so far was in the restaurant Tin Heung Lau in Kowloon, which serves an aged wine produced in its own warehouse. It is the colour of soy sauce (other examples we have seen are lighter, like tawny ports) and when we first smelt it, we immediately thought of aged port, a complex, mellow, slightly sweet drink, about 16% - 17% alcohol, with primary fruits largely gone. Interestingly, though, as it cooled, it felt less like port (less sweet) and became much more like a salty amontillado sherry.

Like sherry, rice wine can be either vintage, or produced in a solera system with old liquid being topped up with younger. There have been vocabulary issues about finding out in what kind of container it is made in, but I think it may have been produced in ceramic/ pottery vessels, so there may not be any wood influence.

The better examples of rice wine are superb drinks; the only thing that might make it seem unlike aged sherry or port is a certain soy character. I do hope both for their own sakes and the sake of Western wine prices the Chinese rediscover their native wines; however at the moment they all seem obsessed with discovering La Tache and friends.