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 Moët & 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 vineyard project itself is an exciting one, the product of a four-year long search by Tony Jordan for Moët & 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.