Chinese baijiu excites Macau

In the second of its Premium Spirits series, dbHK hosted another baijiu masterclass, this time with Macau’s wine trade in the sumptuous surrounds of the newly opened Pearl Dragon in Studio City.

Baijiu is often served from exquisite artist-designed porcelain

Baijiu in Hong Kong appears to evoke mixed feelings – a quick poll among friends revealed rueful memories of downing it to round off a business dinner in the depths of China, to growing up with it as a strong tipple much enjoyed by the parental generation.

But if dbHK’s recent baiju masterclass was anything to go by, certainly the drinks trade seem to have fallen for its diverse and aromatic expressions and appreciate how it can in fact, be paired with up-scale Cantonese cuisine – without a ringing sound of ganbei to force them to finish it in one.

The latest masterclass took dbHK to Macau and the newly opened Pearl Dragon restaurant in Studio City where members of the Macau wine trade gathered to explore the highly alcoholic Chinese white spirit paired with a delicious lunch of contemporary Cantonese food.

Sponsored by Googut Wine and Spirits, a Beijing-based auction house and a specialist in aged baijiu, the event saw 10 Macau sommeliers get their palates around expressions of six baijiu: 2001 Zhuyeqing, 2014 Moutai, 1999 Moutai, 2007 Fenjiu, 2007 Luzhou Laojiao and 2001 Dongjiu.

Styles varied enormously from the ‘saucy’ Moutai with its fermented characteristics to the floral and aromatic Fenjiu.

Ian Wo from Googut guided the guests through the different styles of baijiu including how valuable some of them can be, with a recent sale of a 1958 Kweichow Moutai fetching 2,530,000 RMB at a 2013 auction.

Arnaud Echalier, senior beverage operation manage for Sands in Macau pointed out, “Baijiu is not in our western drinking culture, yet we are all living and working in Hong Kong, Macau and China and it remains very much a part of Chinese tradition. It is important to learn more about it rather than passing it off as something to be drunk quickly without thinking.”

Members of Macau’s wine trade assembled to explore the diverse world of Chinese baijiu

João Pires, director of wines for City of Dreams and Altira Macau also commented, “My first impressions of the range here are very good. There’s such a range of different styles – floral, spicy, smoky – that you can’t categorise them all as the same. And we in the trade are at the forefront of selling this and advising our customers so we also need to understand it properly!”

Alongside the six tastings was a six-course lunch created by chef Tam (also of two-Michelin star Jade Dragon fame) comprising of a unanimous crowd favourite of barbecued Iberico pork buns, steamed garouper dumpling in lobster broth, braised pork belly with preserved vegetables, fried mud carp fish ball, stir fried Chinese lettuce and poached Sakura shrimp dumpling.

Dheeraj Bhatia, sommelier of Robuchon au Dôme at the Grand Lisboa, said the fermented flavours of the tofu in the amuse bouche paired well with the first two Moutais whereas the umami taste of the mud carp fish ball in preserved clam sauce also suited the lighter style of Fenjiu which is floral and almost sweet on the palate.

It may be a while until the wine trade feel au fait recommending different styles of baijiu to their customers, but all were in agreement that a formalised education tasting was extremely beneficial with suggestions for dbHK to host a Baijiu masterclass in Chinese for local staff.

It was also highlighted how the Macau drinks trade differs from Hong Kong in the way that a lot of sales are centered around hotel and casino bars and that most importantly, hundreds of thousands of tourists from China visit each year – the consumers most likely to order and drink baijiu at dinner.

Ian Wo finished by saying, “The longer that baijiu ages, the silkier and more complex it gets. Much like wine or single malts. Baijiu may not be part of everyone’s dinner yet, but our recent tastings have been the first ventures into bringing baijiu to contemporary Hong Kong and Macau settings and have proved that bajiu has the potential to become very popular among the trade and consumers.”

A slideshow of the masterclass will be published very soon.