Why Yunnan could define premium Chardonnay in China

Thanks to high altitudes and extended growing seasons stretching to 200 days under intense Himalayan sunlight, the Yunnan is emerging as China’s most compelling source of fine wine white. Michael Palij MW tells the drinks business why he thinks the southwestern region will come to define premium Chardonnay in China.

“High quality Chardonnay is going to be from Yunnan now”, Michael Palij MW told the drinks business, after presenting a tasting on China’s emerging terroirs in partnership with Vinum Eurus at the Institute of Masters of Wine last week.

Last year, a ProWine report highlighted whites as a promising segment in China – both for domestic producers and importers – with the country making only 1.2mhl hectolitres of red wine in 2025 versus 10m hl a decade ago. Chardonnay remains a leading white grape. But, according to Palij, “the massive amounts of Chardonnay planted elsewhere will just go in that global basket of ‘ho-hum’ Chardonnay that’s planted everywhere and tastes the same.”

Yunnan is a glowing exception. The southwestern province in China, is blessed with high altitudes, cool climate and intense sunlight, which allow exceptionally long growing seasons of around 180 days. Extended ripening occurs at around 2,200 metres by the Mekong River.

While producers are indeed producing more white wine to match growing demand, Palij says: “Ultimately, with those extremes of climate, it’s red wine country. You’re not going to find that delicacy and elegance in the whites that you need from those very long, cool growing seasons outside of Yunnan.”

He waxes lyrical about the region, which features Shangri La at the Himalayan foothills in the northeast, and the LVMH-owned Ao Yun vineyards in the Adong village.  It’s an “incredibly exciting” province, he enthuses, in fact – one of the most exciting regions he’s ever visited. “The potential quality is there. With the light, the seasonality of precipitation, the hang times, it’s just magical.”

Speaking of the growing appetite for white wine in China, Lee Chia-Lin, business development manager at Canaan winery and Domaine Franco-Chinois tells db, “sparkling wine and white wine are growing very fast”, adding that both categories are  “more popular than before”. This is echoed by IWSR data: while still wine sales in China dipped by 10% in 2024, sparkling wine sales lifted 9%. Lee puts this down to the shifting palates of the younger generation, who seek “light, easy and refreshing” pours. 

It’s why Canaan, which used to solely produce red wines, today, makes Sauvignon Blanc, Riesling and Chardonnay – all of which are performing “very well”. Later this year, the winery will even release its own fizz – a traditional method 2015 vintage sparkling wine made from Austrian grape Grüner Veltliner.

But, for Palij, China’s still very much a red wine country, with Marselan bagging itself the label of its signature grape. “As far as China could have a red grape variety that it could really call its own, it would be that,” says Palij. The grape’s strength lies in its adaptability: “You can go from damper, cooler climates to drier, hotter climates. In warmer climates, it performs more like Grenache, in cooler climates, more like Cabernet. Marselan takes it all in its stride.”

And while the younger gen wants fresher serves, when it comes to fine wine, Palij is skeptical that many are actually drinking it. He looks back on an age when, “if you owned wine and the value went down, how bad did it get? You just opened up a case of Lafitte and happy days.” 

Times have changed since then. “The real change is looking at wine like watches or art as an alternate asset class,” he explains. “All of a sudden, people were buying it, not to drink it, because they thought it was an investment.”

In China the gifting of wine is often a symbol of social status, rather than a moment of consumption. It’s not like in Piemonte, for example, where diners casually sip wine with lunch. “That isn’t the culture,” Palij prefaces…  “yet”. He hopes China’s emerging middle class might follow Australia’s trajectory away from cheap wine to premium pours.  “It took 40 years to mature into a market where people were high quality Australian wines at home. China needs that chance to do that”.

Both domestic and international tourism is on the up in China, with immigration authorities processing a record 697m inbound and outbound crossings in 2025 – a 14.2% leap on 2024. Herein lies an opportunity for China to get the word out about its wine. “It’s absolutely the case that the more people who travel to China for tourist reasons will drink the local wine,” says Palij. “China is opening up, it’s becoming slightly more liberal all that time.” People who’d previously made a beeline to Beijing and the Great Wall of China are now adding wineries to their itineraries. “Once you’ve been to the wine region, you’re a devotee for life”.

Canaan, for instance, has two guest rooms, and also hosts corporate events and weddings, with French dining available with a nearby private club. Just half an hour from Beijing via high speed rail, it’s a great day out. And visitors often post footage of their stay to WeChat, Douyin and Xiaohongshu, indirectly becoming ambassadors for the winery. 

For Lee, who hopes to expand into the UK and broader European export market, the biggest barrier in communicating Chinese wines’ global image is that people’s perceptions are clouded by poor experiences decades prior. “It’s difficult for them to change their mindset, but we need to encourage them to try again,” she says.

Looking forward, she predicts Chinese wine will only get better. Give it a decade or two and it will “catch up to the rest of the world”.

And Palij wants Chinese wines to be judged on their merit as simply “good wine”, rather than as “good wine for China”. 

However, while he’s excited by the quality of the bottles, he’s less sure on their price points. But he’s hopeful that producers can be negotiated with to reach price tags that seem reasonable to a global consumer.

“The thing that surprised me the most, from judging Chinese wine competitions and helping import these wines, is the quality is much higher than I would have imagined,” he continues. “That might be my own bigoted prejudices against what China produces, but tasting these wines, I’m pleasantly surprised. I might not be so pleasantly surprised when I see the price, but in terms of the quality, I think, ‘wow, there’s some really sound wines being made.’”

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