Raising his glass

In March last year, Berry Bros & Rudd became the first British retailer to permanently stock Chinese wines. They are the 2008 Chateau Changyu Moser XV from the Ningxia Hui autonomous region, and three ice wines - the Gold, Blue and Black Label - from Liaoning province.

Berry muses that his ancestors sold tea from China and now he is selling the country's wine.

"It's sort of gone full circle," he says with a laugh.

Berry says Chinese wine making is exciting, and he can imagine it will continue to develop into the future.

"As far as I'm concerned, it doesn't matter where wine comes from, as long as it's good. I think the other very important thing is, in order to become good, it needs to have regional characteristics."

He cites New Zealand as an example, a country that has gone from being a wine backwater to one of the world's most celebrated producers in a little over 30 years by exploiting their local advantages and local terroir.

"We've got one of our eight masters of wine coming out to China in October," he says, "going out to the various districts and looking at who has the long term view, who is making interesting wine."

Contact the writer at belletaylor@chinadaily.com.cn