Grapes worth their weight in gold

Harvest this year was said to be the earliest on record for Napa Valley. [Photo provided to China Daily]

More than 160 years after the gold rush that drew the Chinese to California by the thousands, a modern generation of Chinese fortune hunters is descending on the Golden State. Happily, the vineyards of California are showing not the slightest resistance in yielding up their liquid treasure, and cheerful Chinese are returning home bottles in hand and with far more to talk about than Hollywood, the Golden Gate Bridge and a personal encounter with Mickey Mouse.

California is the world's fourth largest wine producer, and Chinese constitute the world's fourth-largest red-wine-drinking population, so perhaps those numbers dictated that this wonderfully convivial relationship between winemaker and drinker was destined to happen.

Forget the idea of the Chinese who are clueless about wine and care even less about what it is and where it comes from. Many Chinese who have fallen for the charms of the finest reds and the finest whites now want answers to these questions, and California's wine makers have shown that they are ready to step up to the plate and provide Chinese wine aficionados a home run full of answers.

Robert Mondavi, a winery in world famous Napa Valley, 80 kilometers north of San Francisco, now hosts tours led by a Mandarin-speaking guide twice a week. With prior arrangement, other kinds of tastings with commentary in Mandarin are also offered.

"We were getting more than 50 Chinese coming here a day at the busiest times, from May to October," says Gong Fangfang, from Chengdu, Sichuan province, who worked as a wine educator for Robert Mondavi Winery for 18 months until recently.

Mondavi took her on as a guide after she completed a course in wine at the Culinary Institute of America in Napa Valley.