Moët Hennessy turns to China to make new fine wine
When Moët Hennessy unveils its latest top-end wine to its leading international clients next month, it will not be inviting guests to Bordeaux or even to Burgundy. Instead, they will arrive at the French embassy in China.
Ao Yun, as the powerful red is called, is grown, produced and bottled in Adong, an area perched 2,600m above sea level on the edge of the Tibetan plateau in one of the remotest places on Earth.
MH, part of French luxury conglomerate LVMH and owner of brands such as Dom Pérignon, Krug and Château d’Yquem, is targeting the international crowd as much as the Chinese market with the wine, priced at €300 a bottle.
“We are starting to see wine collectors around the world wanting to have iconic wines produced in China,” Jean-Guillaume Prats, president of MH’s estates and wines division, told the Financial Times.
Mr Prats said Moët will begin marketing Ao Yun — roughly translated, the name means “sacred cloud” — to connoisseurs and collectors in Europe from next month, and in China from October.
Production at the vineyard, in the south-west province of Yunnan, close to the Tibetan border, is a tiny 24,000 bottles but Mr Prats said the plan was to reach 50,000 within the next five years. The exotic location was picked for its climatic conditions, rare in China, of not being either too wet or too cold.
So far, critics have applauded the Ao Yun 2013, the first vintage — a fact that helps explain the retail price.
As Mr Prats said: “We certainly would never have priced it at that level if we were not confident or if the critics around the world had not said that it was an exceptional wine.”
But the price tag is also a reflection of the challenging logistics, which make Ao Yun the most expensive wine to produce in the estates and wines division’s portfolio.
MH employs 150 Tibetan farmers to tend to the grapes on 320 terraced plots that until recently were more used to yaks, tomatoes and even the odd marijuana plant than to Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc.
“They do everything that is farming and we do everything that is winemaking,” Mr Prats said.
Several producers have already started to grow grapes in the area, where Moët has leased 30 hectares of an available 300 hectares considered apt for vines. But the Paris-based producer is the only non-Chinese investor.
It is also the only one that has taken the decision to produce dry red wine on site, which is only accessible via a 4,300m mountain pass — just one part of a four and a half-hour journey over unpaved roads from Shangri-La, the nearest airport.
“The logistics of vinifying on the spot is a real nightmare,” he said with a smile. “It’s an extraordinary venture.”