The recent spam about the greatness of Chinese wines came to mind tonight as we sat around the low table with my students attempting to drink a bottle of Great Wall. Retailing at like 150RMB (about
18-20USD depending on Erate), you would expect a decent experience or at least something better than utter swill. The Chinese keep the age- old tradition of high prices for low quality goods well alive in Great Wall.
Marked Cabernet Sauvignon, the bottle had elaborate pictures with some patriotic stars and other insignias that I supposed was to make one feel pride in partaking of the grapes of the motherland. No date, no mention of production, or any other particular information was available on the bottle other than some scrawlings of Chinese here and there talking about the fake history of the company and the address of where the factory is located.
Fake cork that shattered and splintered in the Guangdong humidity upon opening. Suspect poor storage for poor wine.
The color was a deep maroon?
Nose: Sour grape juice, asphalt, smog, dirty rags
The brew didn't go down as smooth as the nose. It seems the tannins had been completely removed somehow which made me think Welshes grape juice had more "pucker". First impressions were sort of raunchy with a definite feel of some kind of chemically produced, soured grape juice. Palate....I don't even know how to describe it. If you can imagine the smell of asphalt in your mouth, that's about it.
Now my stomach hurts and I feel dizzy.
This is a 20 dollar bottle of Chinese wine that luckily I didn't have to pay for. But, there was a lot of freebees that were "song" (given for free), like a bottle stand/opener, to try to add value to an already expensive wine. Terrible experience
F-