After a great night at the pool party, few of us had a wine tasting at our intern-apartment. With Terry from Maui (www.maui.com.cn) who import food and wine from New Zealand and which is, compared to Chinese wine, not only drinkable, but really enjoyable!
After a short presentation about the regions where the wine is grown we tasted 4 different wines: first 2 white wines (with which you usually start because they have a lighter taste than red-wine) followed by 2 red wines. Unlike professional wine-taster we didn’t spit out the wine we tasted, because when do you have the chance to drink such good wine in China?

Tasting wine follows three steps: At first you take a look at the wine, check the colour if its very light and clear or rather dark. After that, you smell the flavors of the wine. We were basically only able to decide between fruity and not fruity, but Terry was a real pro. When he was smelling a new wine he noticed the aroma of strawberries, or oak, or whatever came into his nose. After three bottles, everything somehow smelled and tasted the same. But we were still able to decide between white and red wine.

Winners of this night were a white Sauvignon Blanc (the first wine we tasted when all senses still worked), which was very fruity and made us dream of a warm summer night, and the last red wine, a Merlot (don’t really remember why).

So if you are interested in tasting really good wine and getting it for special price, I can only recommend a relaxed and nice atmosphere with Amber Wines and Terry.

Cheers, Franzi