RKS 2026 PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC OF CHINA WINES: Longyu Estate 2023 Cabernet Sauvignon

What do we hear about China and its wines? That they know little about wine. That they are obsessed with prestige and mix enormously expensive first growth Bordeaux with Coca-Cola. I suspect this may be hogwash but until in China touring their wineries what do I know? As a lawyer I know hearsay evidence is largely inadmissible.

What I know is given China’s off the grid as a tourist destination, its attractive food reputation and intriguing historical sites and regions it may be an explosive player in wine tourism. But what are we to know unless more Chinese wines hit the Canadian marketplace reviewed and discussed in the wine media?

China’s wines are viewed with arrogance. What do they know about wine? There would seem to be some realities of utilization of “flying winemakers” and consultants that lend creds to the emergence of Chinese wines.

Is there an opportunity for Chinese wines in Canada? Perhaps given Canadian’s suspicions and distrust of many things “American” my Chinese readers may be encouraged by the fact some Canadian provinces have denied access to American wines due to Trumpian crude insults to Canada the land of igloo people and threats of annexation as the 51st state. A massive supplier of fentanyl into the United States…a pie faced lie unsupported by evidence. The Trumpian way well be known by Canadians and Chinese. Aggressive falsehoods.

Put another way……China, now is the time to strike if you wish to promote your wines. Get Canadian wine writers over to China and show them “what ya got”, Fill their glasses, show them your beautiful geography and historical sites and feed them your wonderful food.

Aroma: Lush and plush blueberry with smoothness hinted at. Blackberry and dark chocolate.

Palate: Tannins moderate and beautifully controlled acidity. Smooth and coherent. Masterfully intertwined blackberry, cassis with a small amount of tar. Long finish. Youthful.

Cellarbility: A baby wine needing more time in the bottle. A bit tight and reticent. Would give it until 2029 to strut its stuff.

Food Match: Not having been to Ningxia Helan Mountain Eastern Foothills and sampled their cuisine I will soil myself in embarrassment and suggest Hunan Beef.

Personality: Chinese wines have travelled a long road and I think with this wine we are on the way!

Price: $32. Are you on a suicide mission China? At this price from an untested provenance this price shows arrogance and misunderstanding. Are you paying Mosel as your joint venturer a bit too much???

RKS 2026 PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC OF CHINA WINES Rating: 91/100.

(Longyu Estate Selection 2023 Cabernet Sauvignon, Wines of China, Ningxia, China, 750 mL, 14.5%)

RKS Literature: An Author Responds to Reviews of His Work (Henry James)

“ I don’t read things in the newspapers unless they’re thrust upon me as that one was-it’s always one’s best friend who does it. But I used to read them sometimes-ten years ago. I dare say they were in general rather stupider then; at any rate it always struck me they missed my little point with a perfection exactly as admirable when they patted me on the back as when they kicked me in the shins.”

Henry James, “The Figure in the Carpet”, 1896.

“Lost in Puppydom: Rory Dylan Stephen’s Puppydom”: AM I LIVING NATALIE IMBRUGLIA’S SONG “TORN”?

AM I LIVING NATALIE IMBRUGLIA’S SONG “TORN”?

Some of the lyrics in Natalie Imbruglia’s 1977 hit “Torn” read, “I’m cold, ashamed lying naked on the floor…”.

I endured my first grooming yesterday. Fay was telling me I was going to the doggie spa. Alright I thought, cucumber slices on my eyes, a manicure and some liver treats. That is not what happened!

A bath, which I detest and struggle like a mad hatter. Buzzing machines all over my body. And being placed in a cage after my grooming until Bob and Fay picked me up. Boy was I glad to see them!

What happened is I lost my identity. Shaved down to the skin. Matting. If only I had not given Bob such a hard time when he brushed me the shave down “a la USMC” might never have happened. I am very protective of my head and snout and gave the groomer a very difficult time.

I feel naked. I feel cold. I feel a bit ashamed of giving Bob such a hard time with his grooming attempts.

Gone is the cute looking Westie. I have received some comments saying I look like a Jack Russell Terrier but that reference to looking like a Chihuahua is BEYOND THE PALE! Another comment is that I looked some creature painted on the sarcophagus of an ancient Egyptian king!

I was so stressed out by the “doggie spa” I had three successive accidents in the house last night. I am ashamed of that too.

I need “grooming training” meaning a visit to the groomer every two months for a trim.

And I thought being a puppy was just having fun and getting scolded a few times a day for naughtiness. Think again Rory. Think again.

RKS Literature:  Treating Life as a Practical Joke (Herman Melville)

 “There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed affair we call life when a man takes this whole universe for a vast practical joke, though the wit thereof he but dimly discerns, and more than suspects that the joke is at nobody’s expense but his own. However, nothing dispirits, nothing seems worth disputing. He bolts down all events, all creeds, and beliefs, and persuasions, all hard things visible and invisible, never mind how knobby; as an ostrich of potent digestion gobbles down bullets and gun flints.”

Herman Melville, “Moby Dick”, 1851.

RKS Literature:  Emotions of the Whale Pursuit (Herman Melville)

 “Not the raw recruit, marching from the bosom of his wife into the fever heat of his first battle; not the dead man’s ghost encountering the first phantom in the other world;-neither of these can feel stranger and stronger emotions than that man does, who for the first time finds himself pulling into the charmed, churned circle of the hunted sperm whale.”

Herman Melville, “Moby Dick”, 1851.

RKS 2026 EURO WINE: A Cabernet Sauvignon from the Ukraine on the Wine Critic Police Line Up

Aroma: Blackberry, cherry and black currant.

Palate: Cherry nectar, pepper, diffuse blackberry, chalky cherry and limp wristed licorice. Lacklustre finish. Moderate tannins and controlled acidity. Short finish.

Personality: There can be many faces of Cabernet Sauvignon, but this wine does not seem to be one of those faces I recognize but where a wine is excellent who cares about the usual set of faces on the wine critic police line up. This wine is not excellent.  

Food Match: A Friday night wine. Rather utilitarian and nondescript.

Cellarbility: Don’t bother cellaring.

Price: $18 CDN.

RKS 2026 Euro Wine Rating: 79/100.

(Bolgrad Select Collection 2024 Cabernet Sauvignon, Bolgrad Winery, Odessa Region, Ukraine, 750 mL, 14%).

RKS Literature: The Virtue of Pickled Cucumber (Shen Fu)

“There is dung in every house. The only question is whether one eats it. I don’t like garlic, but I still eat it because you like it. I would never ask you to eat stinking bean curd; but as for pickled cucumber, if you would only hold your nose and eat some you would realize how good it is. It’s like the old stories about the girl named Wu-yen, who was ugly but virtuous.”

Shen Fu, “The Old Man of the Moon”, 1809.

RKS Literature: An Insult to Stinking Bean Curd and Those Who Eat it (Shen Fu)

“Every day Yun would mix her rice with tea. She liked to eat a spicy, salty kind of bean curd that Soochow people call “stinking bean curd”. She also liked pickled cucumber. These last two things I hated all my life, so one day I said to her, ‘Dogs have no stomach, and eat dung because they do not realize how bad it smells. A beetle rolls in its dung so it can become a cicada, because it wants to fly as high as it can. Which are you, a dog or a beetle?”

Shen Fu, “The Old Man of the Moon”, 1809.

RKS Literature: Married Couples Gazing at the Sunset Will Not be Talking About it (Shen Fu)

“Yun said, ‘The world is so vast, but still everyone looks up at the same moon. I wonder if there is another couple in the world as much in love as we are.’

‘Naturally there are people everywhere who like to enjoy the night air and gaze at the moon,’ I said, “and there are more than a few women who enjoy discussing the sunset. But when a man and his wife look at it together, I don’t think it is the sunset they will wind up talking about.’ The candles soon burnt out and the moon set. We took the fruit inside and went to bed.”

Shen Fu, “The Old Man of the Moon”, 1809.

“Lost in Puppydom: Rory Dylan Stephen’s Puppydom”: I SENSE A NEW CHAPTER? A DAMN FINE DAY!

I SENSE A NEW CHAPTER? A DAMN FINE DAY!

We all woke up to an inch of snow on the on the way greening grass this morning. This is 6April! We are too weary in Toronto to give a damn anymore as after all Iran is to be decimated a few hours ago. Was it?

Has it been over a week since my “last indiscretion” in the house. OMG may be even two! What an enormous feat! I sense an Vesuvian deflation of stress.

Increasingly it is up to me to tell the family “when its time”. Puppies must think for themselves!

For no definable, logical and fully supported from an evidentiary perspective we are heading HUGELY OUT OF PUPPYHOOD.

I sense a fully natural integration with Bob and Fay.