Decanter World Wine AwardsSimon Tam to introduce Chinese tasting notes for auctions
- Tuesday 22 March 2011
Simon Tam, the founder of Shanghai's Independent Wine Centre, took up the Hong Kong-based position in February.
His brief, he says, is to bring the ancient auction house ‘closer to the Chinese community’.
One of his first moves – apart from serving vintage tea in the auction rooms – will be to begin adding original Chinese tasting notes alongside the traditional translated notes.
The main reason for this, Tam says, is that many western descriptors – such as blackberry and blackcurrant, or concepts such as ‘forest floor’ - are so uncommon in China as to be meaningless.
‘You can describe a rare old Burgundy as having “forest floor” or “earthy” characteristics – but when you translate that literally, you’d be lucky to find a forest in the middle of Shanghai.’
So the earthy characteristics of a 1982 first growth, for example, will be now be described as reminiscent of Chinese dried plums. A Grand Cru Montrachet will not have ‘honey and toast’ flavours, but aromas of sugar cane juice, known for its woody, toasted flavours, or Jin-Mao tea, also known as Golden Hair, a rare tea with scents of undergrowth, mushroom, truffle, wax, honey, vanilla and tobacco notes.
Similarly, the earthy notes in fine old Burgundy may be described in terms of the aromas to be found in some Chinese herbal soups.
‘The idea will not be to highlight individual components, single flavours, in a wine but to take a more holistic approach, to talk about the integration of flavour. We are going to use the whole of the vast Chinese culinary repertoire.’
Christie’s catalogues will continue to carry tasting notes from Michael Broadbent’s Vintage Wine, and by Christie’s Asian head of wine Charles Curtis, as well as newly-written tasting notes in simple script Chinese.
Tam stressed that his role is not to ‘educate’ but to ‘nurture’.
‘The Chinese are sharp operators and very knowledgable. They know about taste and what they should pay for wine, so the idea of educating them is condescending. We want to nurture – to bring East and West closer together.’
Have your say!
Taj
March 12 05:11
trip I was asked by another eesaonsd wine professional to explain my thoughts on the subject. Rightly or wrongly, when a wine shows minerals on the nose for me, it has a stony, flinty or even wet stones freshness about it, sometimes likened to the smell of fresh rain on hot stones after a storm. Similarly when I refer to the palate being mineral then I am with Michael Schuster 100% and let's face it the minerals Michael refers to in his book have a connection to the great terroirs of the world like Burgundy, Champagne, Rhone Valley and Priorat to name a few. But I agree there is often abuse of this descriptive without knowingly understood but hey wine is about opinions. I would also add that in my opinion the mineral descriptive goes hand in hand with acidity and can often provide a wine, whether red or white with great backbone and perfect balance when in the right proportions. Think of a ballet dancer walking a hire wire great tension and finesse working in harmony.
Timothy Clancy
November 10 06:05
I have always wondered how to explain to the taste of a wine to a chinese person in chinese!
If you have those tasting notes ready would you mind sending a copy to my email?
best regards
Louis Heriard Dubreuil
March 25 07:21
Fascinating! Really looking forward to hearing more about those new tasting notes!
Good luck sir
Harry Houghton
March 24 08:23
Fascinating insight into the value added by someone that truly understand the cultural and linguistic complexities, similarities and differences involved. Good luck Simon Tam!