Plumbing the Depths of Plum Wine

Talk about a plum assignment.

I picked up two bottles of CHEERS plum wines this week for a sweet and sour experience.

Saying 'CHEERS' and 'wine' usually means grapes. But there are lots of other fruits that can give us delicious boozy results. And China has no shortage of top-notch options, from the apples in the east to the melons out west to the lychee and mangoes and pineapples that thrive down south.

These plum wines--qing mei jiu-- have a nice niche in China's drinks family, giving us a pleasant balance between fruit tartness and the pure sweetness of rock sugar.

(For those who find it hard to imagine how sweetness and sourness can cohabitate, think of lemonade, which combines mouth-puckering citrus with the intensity of sugar.)

CHEERS' pair of plum wine options, made by Huāsì in Sichuan province, both offer a nice blend of floral, fruity and honey aromas. The lower-alcohol version, at 8 per cent, is more delicate, floral, even a little smoky, with a mild finish. It's cousin, at 12 per cent alcohol, is fuller-bodied, slightly viscous and much more intensely flavored. It packs much more of a plummy punch.

Both of these plum wines are versatile and can easily be consumed with meals, although they seem even better as an aperitif, a tasty way to rev your appetite. You can even mix them with soda water or tonic water for some bubbly effect.

Or just enjoy them on their own. Try them cool--I suggest pouring at room temperature at the warmest. Or drop the thermometer and go for ice-cold. A fun option instead of using ice cubes, which will melt and dilute your drink, is to drop in some frozen grapes. That will keep your plum wine plummy and is a nice tribute to the fruit we most associate with wine.

Original by Jim Boyce, Grape Wall of China 葡萄围城

Tap here to learn more about grapes and wine-drinking.

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