Editor’s Note: As many of you know, we diverge from Iberian wine every now and again to give you new perspectives and experiences on wine from abroad. This week, our Chinese correspondent, Edward Ragg, of Dragon Phoenix Fine Wine Consulting gives his the first installment of his series on how he became a Chinese wine consultant in Beijing.

First off, a few qualifiers… I am not Chinese nor am I a consultant to Chinese wineries; although, for better or worse, I have tasted my way through multiple Chinese wines, if only a handful overall from a country that boasts several hundred wineries in Shandong province alone.

Sadly, I’m not a master of Chinese either; and currently grasp only enough of the language to get me into trouble or fool taxi drivers into thinking my linguistic skills extend beyond ‘Turn Left’, ‘Turn Right’ or ‘Please go to the end of the street’. These are the phrases most ex-pats here obviously have to learn; and, sadly, what most of us only have time to learn. After the usual practical banter, I typically fall at the first hurdle when it comes to intimate questions about my family, salary and what I’m paying on rent (apartment and office): questions just about every Beijing taxi driver will gladly ask.

So it’s with a sense of caution that I talk about anything ‘in China’ or indeed Chinese consumers’ responses to wine, relying as I do on my wife Fongyee’s far more competent language capabilities. Nevertheless, through team-work or otherwise, we have been hugely …

Image from WikipediaThis month, the King of Wine Video World is our host of Wine Blog Wednesday, Gary Vay-ner-chuck. Two weeks ago, Gary put forth on his tiny Wine vlogging project the theme of this month’s WBW would be Cabernet Franc from France. “Not too difficult,” we thought rather glibly. “It’s only a Cab Franc from the other side of the border. I’m sure the wine shop will have at least something from France!” But alas, they did not.

Because we live in Spain, a wine bottle from our neighbor not 400 km away can seem like the other side of the planet. Spaniards drink Spanish wine, period, so a 100% Cab Franc was out completely out of the question. And because we’re saving the planet with our fuel efficient feet, we were unable to cross the border to pick up a bottle of the fabulous French stuff. Consequently, we settled on a Spanish Cab Franc instead; however, unbeknown to us, even Spanish Cab Franc is as hard to find as French Cabernet Franc, with only a handful available for purchase.

In the end, we chose the 2004 Augustus from Cellars Puig i Roca in D.O. Penedes. Yet, trying to find information on this innovative winery through Google is like trying to find a …

Every blogger loves comments, as infrequent as they may be at times. Without them, our job becomes relatively meaningless, as if we get up in the morning to write only for ourselves. Comments give us perspective, direction and a gauge to understand if and where our stories are hitting most profoundly within cyberspace.

But for niche bloggers like ourselves, who are writing for a foreign market, when we do have the great fortune of receiving a comment, it almost always comes from outside Spain and Portugal. To receive a comment from a wine aficionado here in Iberia is like hitting the jackpot. Granted, language is obviously the main barrier that detracts Spaniards and Portuguese from commenting on Catavino, but equally true is the idea of communicating via the Web simply because Latin culture thrives on personal interaction using eye contact, hand gestures and words to convey meaning. Consequently, you can imagine how elated we were when we received this comment on a post approximately a month ago:

It is very nice to see that the Portuguese wines have these kinds of critics. I have a little wine shop here in Portugal, where I try to have some “pearls” that are hard to find at the large surfaces [in the big wine shops] that we have in our country. Our objective is to give personalized treatment to our customers…

So what did I do when I got this comment? I hounded this poor man with questions! Vitor Mendes is one of four partners of a small Portuguese wine and tea shop located 40 km south of Oporto in Santa Maria da Feira. Over the past month, I’ve had the honor of corresponding with Vitor, learning of his passion for Portuguese wine, his upbringing …