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Friday 30 March 2022 is set to become a defining moment in the evolution of La Place de Bordeaux and, more importantly, the history of Chinese viticulture, as Ao Yun 2018 becomes the first Chinese grand cru to be released through the Bordeaux négociant system.

The wine will continue to be distributed in mainland China through Mo?t & Hennessy directly, with La Place de Bordeaux becoming responsible for the remaining global distribution. The courtier on la place is Bureau Lévêque who will work, in the first instance, with a small number of carefully-chosen négociants.

The project

The vineyard project itself is an exciting one, the product of a four-year long search by Tony Jordan for Mo?t & Hennessy to identify the prime site in mainland China for the creation of a world class cru. That search traversed the country, from north to south, east to west before it finally culminated in the selection of Ao Yun in North Yunnan in the foothills of the Himalayas, not far from Shangri La itself. The area is part of the UNESCO-protected area of the three parallel rivers, below the 6,800 metre summit of the sacred mountain of Meili.

As this already suggests, the location itself is incredibly remote, extreme in all kinds of ways and utterly unique. It produces a wine that is fascinating, appropriately ethereal and exceptional – and perhaps rather different than one might imagine.

The key to all of this, as it so often is, is terroir – indeed, not just one terroir, but a patchwork of multiple fragmented terroirs that express themselves very differently from one vintage (and one growing season) to another.

Ao Yun comes, in essence, from vines grown in and around four tiny villages, two each on either side of the Mekong river valley. The vineyards are all at extreme altitude – between 2,100 and 2,600 metres, to be more precise. But, significantly, there is also a very significant variation in altitude between them. This leads to extreme differences in harvesting dates, which range, for the 2018 vintage for instance, from early September until mid-November.

The majority of the vines are grown on terraces. The vineyards vary too in soil composition, exposure, drainage and severity of slope (from steep to extreme!). Indeed, Maxence Dulou, Ao Yun’s Estate and Technical Director, has identified to date some 35 distinct and different terroirs present in 314 blocks and 727 sub-blocks.

Each vineyard is farmed organically using an indigenous form of agroecology practiced in the region for centuries by local families (well over 100) who tend the vines without the use of any mechanical intervention. It is estimated that each hectare requires on average 3,500 hours of work by hand per year. As Jean-Guillaume Prats is reported to have said (perhaps apocryphally), the logistics of making this wine are a nightmare and it costs more to produce than Chateau d’Yquem itself.

Around half of the current 27 hectares under vine were planted on ungrafted rootstock in 2000. These older vines are exclusively Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc. In 2013 Merlot, Petit Verdot, Syrah and more Cabernet Sauvignon and Franc were planted by the Mo?t Hennessy team, this time on grafted rootstock. New terraces are in the process of being planted with additional Syrah, Cabernet Franc and, for the first time, Malbec in the village of Sinong.

The philosophy of the wine is, as Maxence Dulou eloquently explains, a subtle combination of the Burgundian and the Bordelais. From Burgundy, Ao Yun takes the idea of fragmented terroirs vinified separately and tiny plots to express those terroirs. And from Bordeaux it takes the idea of blending (of both varietals and of terroirs) to produce layering and complexity and also the idea that what goes into the final blend is based on a blind-tasted selection and not a prejudgement of the respective relative merits of particular terroirs.