When a penniless farmer named Zhang Boshi left his village in Guangdong in 1859, he could never have imagined he would found China's first winery, which is flourishing a century later and challenging French brands at the dinner tables of Chinese.
Zhang's was a rags-to-riches story similar to that of many from Fujian and Guangdong who sought their fortune in Southeast Asia. He went to Jakarta where he learnt business and branched out into banking and trade, amassing a fortune. He came to invest in his homeland, and in 1892 set up China's first wine factory.
Zhang gambled there would be a demand for this strange new product from the increasing number of foreigners in China and the elite who came into contact with them. The vast majority of his countrymen, then as now, satisfy their thirst with beer and strong liquor made from rice, sorghum and other grains.
The choice of site, in Yantai, a pretty port city on the northeast coast of Shandong province, was the result of painstaking research by Zhang's staff for the soil best suited to wine-making.
Things went well at first. In 1915, at a fair in Panama to mark the opening of the canal, the company won four gold medals for its brandy, red wine, riesling and vermouth. Then things started to go downhill. Zhang died in 1916 and mismanagement and excess taxes forced the firm to borrow increasing amounts of money until the Bank of China took it over in 1934.
From 1941 to 1945, the company was run by a Japanese who occupied Yantai. After the Communist takeover in 1949, it became a state company and output remained low for what was considered a luxury item - 3,000 tonnes in 1970, 9,000 tonnes in 1980 and 21,000 in 1990.
