The Chinese Wine Renaissance

The story of wine's ancient beginnings, with a foreword by Oz Clarke. The Chinese have been making wine since the days of the Silk Road and they have a rich, yet little known wine culture. Their now thriving wine market is entwined with thousands of years of fashion, poetry, and art, and offers a window into the country's vibrant history and legendary tales. This well-researched book offers a taste of China through a wine journey, setting the rise of grape wine against the fascinating backdrop of Chinese culture. In an accessible and comprehensive tone, this guide covers the relationship between Chinese philosophy and wine, the renaissance of grape wine in modern China, the different varieties of Chinese wines, how to pair them with Chinese food and explores wine etiquette and customs. As wines from China are spreading to our shores and our tables, this book is an essential companion for all wine lovers interested in exploring new flavours while expanding their cultural horizons.

The story of wine's ancient beginnings, with a foreword by Oz Clarke. The Chinese have been making wine since the days of the Silk Road and they have a rich, yet little known wine culture. Their now thriving wine market is entwined with thousands of years of fashion, poetry, and art, and offers a window into the country's vibrant history and legendary tales. This well-researched book offers a taste of China through a wine journey, setting the rise of grape wine against the fascinating backdrop of Chinese culture. In an accessible and comprehensive tone, this guide covers the relationship between Chinese philosophy and wine, the renaissance of grape wine in modern China, the different varieties of Chinese wines, how to pair them with Chinese food and explores wine etiquette and customs. As wines from China are spreading to our shores and our tables, this book is an essential companion for all wine lovers interested in exploring new flavours while expanding their cultural horizons.

Could China take over the wine world? Cynthia Howson and Pierre Ly explore how Chinese wine went from being ignored and ridiculed to earning gold medals and praise by famous critics in less than a decade. Wine made in… China? Until recently, for most people, at best, it didn’t exist. Or at worst, as one colorful tasting note described, it evoked: “ash tray, coffee grounds, and urinal crust.” Then, a 2009 Chinese red shocked the world when it won Best Bordeaux Blend at the Decanter World Wine Awards. Could China take over the wine world? Cynthia Howson and Pierre Ly provide a knowledgeable and exuberant exploration of how Chinese wine went from being ignored and ridiculed to earning gold medals and praise by famous critics in less than a decade. They take the reader along on their adventure on the China wine trail to meet the farmers, entrepreneurs, and teachers who are shaping this new industry. They travel to Chinese wine tourism hotspots, talk to winemakers who struggle to find good wine grapes, and visit lush mountaintops and arid deserts to see what French multinational corporations have in common with small family farms. Then, they visit a Chinese wine school to meet professors and their students eager to join the wine work force. They reveal where they bought the best local wines as they give travelers new insights on China and ideas for Chinese wine tourism. Readers interested in current affairs, economic development, and business in China will find that wine offers a clear lens for understanding the larger issues facing the country.

The art, fashion and wine industries are currently at various stages in their efforts to embrace and transition towards sustainability. While sustainability commitments are a necessary condition for progress, they are not sufficient. Instead, there is a need for sweeping transformative change that includes giving serious consideration to indigenous worldviews without recolonizing them. Sustainability in Art, Fashion and Wine includes findings from recent research and contributes to a new understanding of familiar concepts such as sustainability, (de)colonization and corporate responsibility in the art, fashion and wine industries by adopting critical lenses and incorporating them with innovative perspectives on circular business models and digitalization. It endeavors to present remedies for effectively combating climate change and promoting social good. While discussing specific issues such as sub-contracted labor, safe working conditions, living wages, environmental degradation, mismanaged waste, and more, the book argues that recognizing the significant role western colonization has played – and continues to play – in the developing world in our current conception of capitalism is itself unsustainable. To understand the true meaning of sustainability – to fully recognize the looming deadlines we face in combating the climate crisis and instituting sustainability as a new normal – the acceptance of a new conception of capitalism, one antithetical to colonization and exploitation, is required. Contributors to this book address these issues by applying a critical studies approach to their respective chapters, allowing the book to set out what real sustainability could and should look like in the art, fashion and wine industries.

"Albala 's engaging tour through the host of Renaissance dietary theories reminds us that our preoccupations with food and susceptibility to cranky advice about nutrition are nothing new. This is superior scholarship delivered with a light touch."—Rachel Laudan, author of The Food of Paradise: Exploring Hawaii’s Culinary Heritage "This stimulating work is an important contribution to social and especially medical-dietetic history. Albala is the first to explore in detail the role of dietetic literature in the development of the European nation state. His book is a pleasure to read."—Melitta Weiss Adamson, editor of Food in the Middle Ages

The "New York Times"-bestselling author of "1421" offers a stunning reappraisal of history, presenting compelling new evidence about the European Renaissance, tracing its roots to the Chinese. 16-page color photo insert.

This distinctive and enlightening book explores the development of tea drinking in China, using tea culture to explore the profound question of how Chinese have traditionally expressed individuality. By linking tea to individualism, Hinsch’s deeply researched book makes an original and influential contribution to the history of Chinese culture.

An East Asian Renaissance, by a World Bank team led by Chief Economist for East Asia & Pacific, Dr Homi Kharas and Economic Adviser, Dr Indermit Gill is the first comprehensive analysis of the new forces and challenges at play in the region since the Bank's seminal report of 1993, The East Asian Miracle. The report argues that regional flows of goods, finance and technology are helping even smaller East Asian countries reap the benefits of economies of scale and that this regional integration must be encouraged. But it also points out that these measures have to be supported by actions at the domestic level to ease the stresses and strains that rapid economic growth leaves in its wake. East Asia must now turn to the urgent domestic challenges of inequality, social cohesion, corruption and environmental degradation arising from its economic success.