Year of the Dragon 2012: Chinese Wine and Culture

As I was putting together my pre­vi­ous blog on Year of the Dragon 2012: The Rise of Chi­nese Wines, I came across a lot of near Chi­nese tra­di­tions regard­ing wine that I want to share with you.

In China, they have a say­ing, “A thou­sand cups of wine is not too much when the bosom of friends meets together.” In other words, wine brings peo­ple together, and a close friend­ship means hap­pi­ness. Just like many other places in the world, the Chi­nese use wine to cel­e­brate many dif­fer­ent occasions.

There are fifty-six dif­fer­ent nation­al­i­ties within China, and nearly all of these have their own dis­tinct cus­toms and tra­di­tions with regards to the con­sum­ing of spirits.

Fes­tive Moments in Chi­nese Culture

For exam­ple, in Mon­go­lia res­i­dents will give three cups of wine to a guest, and will go on singing about wine until the guest fin­ishes their wine.

A pop­u­lar time to drink wine in China is, of course, that time that day that we find our­selves on today, the Chi­nese New Year! It is a time for famil­iars to get together and have some social drinks. Another big cel­e­bra­tion is Dou­ble Ninth Fes­ti­val, or recently more col­lo­qui­ally called “Senior Cit­i­zens Day.” How­ever instead of drink­ing table wine they drink and tra­di­tional wine called Chrysan­the­mum wine, which is done to pre­vent dis­as­ters and pray for bless­ings. Dur­ing this, the chil­dren will toast their par­ents as a way of say­ing “Thank You” for car­ry­ing for them when young.

Another Chi­nese cel­e­bra­tion that uses wine is the cel­e­bra­tion to mark the 100th day fol­low­ing a birth, as wine is seen as a gift of longevity, as well as a trans­fer of love and well-wishes. For this rea­son younger per­son will bring wine and join the elderly for a drink.

The Chi­nese Etiquette

1. The Guest’s Glass should always be full of wine.
2. Older and impor­tant peo­ple should be served first.
3. A toast rep­re­sents esteem and is seen as impo­lite if you don’t participate.
4. A toast is rep­re­sents esteem and is seen as impo­lite if you don’t’ participate.
5. If you don’t drink you must find some­one else to drink for you.

Stay tuned. The next blog is Year of the Dragon: 2012 – Tra­di­tional Foods for New Years and some wines to accompany.