Taking a wok on the wine side

Basco tried fried insects with wine in Yunnan province, and the food journey also helped change the way he cooks. He now uses seasonings and ingredients he picked up from trying different kinds of Chinese dishes.

The team adopted a flexible approach to shooting the show. The filming process is similar to documentary-making and the crew were rarely required to reshoot scenes. Basco says the show was sometimes improvised: "Generally, we would ask the chef to help with the wine tasting, and then find other people on location. Sometimes we just invited people to appear on the show."

Sun Xiaoyi, co-founder of winepicurean.com, was one of the people Walker invited to join in the wine tasting for the episode on Beijing cuisine. She says working with Walker is always fun.

"In my opinion, each Chinese dish does not have to be paired with a particular wine-it's all about personal preference and enjoyment," says Sun.

Walker personally selected the 11 cities used as locations for the Wok n' Wine series, choosing her favorite or most popular regional dishes, such as noodles from Shanxi province.

In the show she visits old hutong lanes in Beijing, dresses up as an imperial concubine from the Tang Dynasty (618-907) in Xi'an and even rides on a camel in the desert.

If the show is picked up for another season, Walker plans to explore Chaozhou in Guangdong province for its Chaoshan cuisine, Yangzhou in Jiangsu province to sample Huaiyang cuisine and Shenyang in Liaoning province to try Dongbei cuisine. "The trouble with China is that there are too many choices!" Walker says.