Chinese Snake Wine

My mom is a die-hard Sauvignon Blanc drinker and for the past 10 years she has exclusively drank Kim Crawford SB, with an occasional Sancerre thrown in depending on availability. Imagine her surprise when my brother took her and my dad on a 2-week trip to China in 2011 (after he lived in Beijing for a year). Little to no wine to be found outside of Beijing and Shanghai, and certainly no white wine! I still hear her "horror" stories about this experience to this day.

Our class discussions on the booming and evolving wine culture and business in China did not reflect what I remember my family's experience to be 8 years ago.  I asked my family to send me some memories about their wine experience in China to give y'all a comparison. The exchange was fairly entertaining:

Mom:
"My white wines were from the B&B owner where we stayed, he somehow got them especially for me. They were imported from New Zealand. But they were not that good..."

"We went on a boat and I ordered a glass of white wine. They brought out the bottle and there was a dead snake at the bottom of the bottle. I screamed and said no thank you to the waitress." (this is one of my favorite visuals)

Brother:
"Haha, yeah that was rice wine - much more popular. Usually doesn't have a snake in it though. The rice wine is called baijiu, literally "white alcohol". Grape wine is not very popular, there isn't a wine culture in general with locals in rural areas. In higher-end tourist-oriented restaurants, you usually get red. There is a Chinese brand called Great Wall that isn't very good, unless you get their special reserve label which is decent. The red is drinkable, the white was not."

I'm glad to hear that the wine times are dramatically changing in China -- maybe we can even convince my mom to give the vino culture another shot. We are from Houston, so Yao Ming winery could be great entry point!