Browny with hazelnut ice cream. (Photo provided to China Daily)
For many Chinese, Australia is not only an attractive tourism destination, but also an important source of affordable high quality wines. Its celebrated wine region, Margaret River in Western Australia, is one of the world's great wine producing regions.
Stella Bella, a boutique winery from the wine region, held a wine-tasting event in Beijing last week, pairing some of its premium wines with a specially designed menu.
The Margaret River region is where the Southern Ocean and Indian Ocean meet, and it thus has a very pleasant climate. It gets a lot of wind, but it never gets too cold, and it never snows.
The warm, dry summers are great to grow Chardonnay and Cabernet grapes, says Nick James-Martin, export sales manager with Stella Bella.
The winery produces 20 types of wines, and about half a million bottles a year. It has a strong domestic market, with only about 20-30 percent of its production exported.
China now absorbs about one third of the exports, making it one of the winery's largest foreign markets, says James-Martin.
The winery now seeks to expand its exports to 40 percent of its annual production, and hopes that China will maintain its share of the imports.
The winery attaches great importance to the Chinese market, because the Chinese now buy wine to drink and enjoy, and not just to gift. This means that the wine market in China will be long-term and steady, he says.
Last week's wine tasting featured six of the winery's premium wines including Stella Bella Chardonnay 2011.
Chardonnay is one of the most important grape varieties of the Margaret River region, and the white wine is full of flavor, very elegant, and can age beautifully to get more complex.
Shiraz is a signature grape variety in Australia, especially South Australia, and the cool weather in the Margaret River region makes the Shiraz from there very distinctive compared with other parts of Australia. Compared with other shiraz wines from Australia, Stella Bella Shiraz 2010 is more elegant and with less alcohol---only 14 percent.
Stella Bella Suckfizzle Cabernet Sauvignon ella Bella Shiraz 2010 is more elegant and with less alcohol-only 14 percent.
Stella Bella Suckfizzle cabernet sauvignon Sauvignon 2008 is another signature product of the winery, made using Cabernet from a single vineyard located at the south tip of West Australia. It is only 2 km from the Southern Ocean and 3 km from the Indian Ocean.
The sea gives the wine a unique texture, an elegant structure and the ability to age more than 20 years.
For Chinese cuisine, white wines from the winery pair well with fish. the red wines are perfect for pork and beef dishes and the winery's Cabernet and Shiraz wines are very good with duck, says James-Martin.
