Sommelier and Somm’s Table co-founder Meiyu Li. 

On a sunny day in May in Sydney’s CBD, 500 people have descended on the Ace Hotel. They’re here for Huge Moves, an annual showcase of more than 30 small-scale local winemakers and wine importers. Among those pouring for the thirsty punters is Hamish Williams, who started bringing in new-wave wine from China 18 months ago. And he has been mobbed – the crowd can’t get enough of the orange wine from Xiaopu, the malvasia from Ningxia, the longyan from Hebei. “People’s eyes lit up,” says Williams, still recovering from the onslaught of curiosity. “They were like: ‘Oh my god, wow! These wines are so exciting.’”

For people who’ve been in the wine business for years, Williams’ Chinese imports are a game changer. “They’re a world away from the Bordeaux replicant wines I used to taste out of China only a few years ago,” says Joel Amos, founder of DRNKS, an online retailer that organises Huge Moves. They’re nothing like the rather heavy-handed, oaky cabernets state-owned companies such as Great Wall have been making for decades. “These new wines are fun, they’re modern, they have character.”

Gao says younger people living in big Chinese cities are increasingly appreciating wine. Kevin Frayer

For younger drinkers – people who attend wine parties such as Huge Moves, or eat at restaurants like Central in Brisbane, which is pouring Williams’ imports – there’s no previous experience to compare them with; the wines are entirely new. “With 90 per cent of our customers, this is the first time they’ve tasted Chinese wine,” says Central head sommelier Hannah Brunning. “There’s a real interest there: they try a Chinese chardonnay and they want to have a conversation with us about it.”

The buzz surrounding the Chinese new wave is reminiscent of when natural wines burst onto the market in the late 2000s; at first it was just a handful of tiny producers making a lot of noise, but the wines inspired a movement that changed the vinous landscape in Australia. “Every now and then, a new bunch of wines come along that tick all the next-big-thing boxes,” agrees Amos. “It looks like this could be one of those moments.”

Over the past 18 months, bottles of Ningxia marselan, Xinjiang rkatsiteli and Shandong cabernet gernischt have been popping up at top restaurants and retailers across south-eastern Australia. They’re on sale at P&V Merchants in Sydney and Lee Ho Fook restaurant in Melbourne. They’re on the wine list at the venerable Flower Drum and at buzzy Moondrop in Fitzroy. The wine list at DOM, a $250-a-head, 10-seat Cantonese omakase restaurant in Melbourne’s Southbank, is now all-Chinese.

These new wines are trending in China too, at bars such as Somm’s Table in Beijing, opened in December last year by award-winning sommelier Meiyu Li, with a big focus on emerging Chinese winemakers. “These winemakers all share a few common traits,” says Li, whose company, DrinkArts Studio, has spent more than a decade advising top restaurants across China.

“They’re forward-thinking, internationally minded, and often trained or exposed to winemaking abroad. They focus on expressing terroir and balance in their wines rather than high alcohol or heavy oak.” They also know how to market themselves; “branding, packaging, and design matter to them”.

Another trait that many of these emerging producers share is their connection to Australia, through living, studying or working here. “That applies to the majority of our winemakers,” says Francesco Tang, a Chinese-born importer whose portfolio is “very Australia-inspired”. “Take Feng Jian: he learnt winemaking in Adelaide, spent 13 years in Australia, then worked around the world before planting his own vineyard, Mingyi, in Yunnan.”

It’s hard to overstate how radical new-wave Chinese winemakers such as Feng Jian are. For decades, the Chinese wine industry has been dominated by large-scale, often state-supported producers with vast vineyards and grand, faux-European chateaus. They churned out millions of bottles a year, almost all consumed locally: much of the output was “ersatz claret” – oaky red wines, modelled on red bordeaux – served to foreign dignitaries at state banquets in Beijing, or sold at high prices on the luxury market.

In the late 2000s and early 2010s, there was an influx of international investment in China. Bordeaux’s Chateau Lafite established Domaine de Long Dai in Shandong, Chandon set up sparkling wine facilities in Ningxia, and LVMH developed the Ao Yun winery in Yunnan, aiming at high-priced wines for collectors. By contrast, most of the new Chinese wines are from small-scale, independent, family-owned businesses.

Established only in the past decade, their wines are diverse and innovative, leaning into international wine-bar-friendly styles. Some producers are micro-scale, and Burgundy-inspired – Mingyi’s top chardonnay costs $450 a bottle, as much as a grand cru from the C?te d’Or – while some, like the 2000-hectare, state-of-the-art Xige Estate in Ningxia, are major commercial players (and they’re notably inspired more by Penfolds than Bordeaux).

“This change has been building for about a decade but has really taken off in the last two years,” says Eddie McDougall, who founded the Chinese Wine Awards in partnership with Wynn Resorts in Macau in 2024. “That’s when the world started to take notice.” The Hong Kong-born winemaker, who grew up and trained in Australia, says his awards now attract key wine people from outside China, which has helped spread the word about the rapid pace of change in the country.

“There’s been a ripple effect,” he says. “We’ve seen a high level of interest in the results of the awards and in the quality of Chinese wines, in places like London and Sydney.” McDougall observes that many young Chinese winemakers are internationally educated and experienced. “They’ve already got a global network in the wine industry they can tap into. They’ve got mates from when they were studying winemaking in Adelaide, or living in Melbourne, working part-time in a wine shop or as a sommelier.”

Ian Dai is one of the highest-profile of the new wave of Chinese producers. The Chengdu-based winemaker went to school in Sydney for a couple of years and also worked in Australian wineries before moving back to China and teaching people about wine in the then-emerging region of Ningxia.

Ian Dai is a pioneer of nomad winemakers. 

Starting with just one wine in 2017, Dai now calls himself a “nomad winemaker”, producing 3000 cases of wine under his Xiaopu label across many styles, sourcing grapes from different regions across China. In 2022, he founded Young Generation Chinese Wine, a group of like-minded small, progressive producers, many of whose wines are now being poured at Somm’s Table in Beijing, Nin Hao in New York and Central in Brisbane.

“I came to winemaking from a background as a sommelier and educator,” says Dai. “I was always drinking international wine and knew [with my own brand] I wanted to play in that category.” But, he says, China’s wine bar scene is still in its infancy. “In the entire city of Shanghai, the number of good wine-drinking venues is less than in Fitzroy or Darlinghurst. For my wine, the styles I’m making, it’s just easier to sell in more international cities like Hong Kong or Melbourne.” Which is why he started exporting. Australia was his first overseas market in 2024; now he also sells wine to Malaysia, Singapore, the US, Mexico and soon to Europe.

Indeed, the Chinese wine market, Dai says, is “super-bad right now”. Yes, there is a buzz about the new-wave styles he and his colleagues make, but it’s minuscule compared with the bulk of wine consumption, which is dominated by old-school reds – and the Chinese are drinking much less of those than they used to.

According to the May 2026 State of the World Wine Sector report from the International Organisation of Vine and Wine, overall wine consumption in China has dropped by 60 per cent since 2020, with the market “shifting from protocol? and gift?driven demand toward more fragmented, consumer-led consumption patterns”. The old guard – mostly male, mostly over 40 – are being replaced by a small but growing, mostly young female demographic influenced by social media and who buy their wine online.

Silver Heights winery, the largest exporter of wine in Ningxia, is a good example of an established producer pivoting in response to this shifting commercial reality – and its star winemaker, Emma Gao, is a leading example of how women are driving change in China’s wine industry. When Silver Heights started 20 years ago, it was a Bordeaux-led model. Gao trained in Bordeaux; her Emma’s Reserve cabernet won international awards and helped put Ningxia on the map.

Silver Heights vineyard in Ningxia. Kevin Frayer

Now Silver Heights also makes chardonnay, and pinot noir, and sparkling wine blended with rice wine, and whites fermented in amphorae. The turning point, says Gao, came a few years ago when she realised she had three years of unsold cabernet in the warehouse because the market for that kind of wine had dropped so fast.

“We cut down the production of the cabernet and started to make different varieties of wine,” she says. “The younger generation in cities like Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou, Shenzhen are starting to appreciate wine, so I have to adapt so we can sell everything. It was a strategy to be economically healthy.”

Sommelier Meiyu Li thinks this growing interest in wine among younger consumers is no passing trend. “Many were introduced to wine while studying abroad, and others are simply attracted to a more refined and high-quality lifestyle. This is connected to the economic environment: as long as China’s economy continues to develop, this consumer group will definitely continue to expand.”

Australia is a ready-made market for this wave of new and reinvented wines from China. There are more high-quality Chinese restaurants here with well-regarded wine lists than in most other parts of the world. “Wines like Xige are perfect for us,” says Lee Ho Fook chef and owner Victor Liong, who recently hosted a successful Xige Estate dinner at the restaurant.

“I’ve always been about introducing Australian people to Chinese products, food and drink, so it’s great to see more Chinese wines in the market now. Especially the newer white wines, which naturally suit my dishes better.”

Vineyards in Shangri-La, Yunnan.

As Ian Dai observes, Australia also boasts a dynamic wine bar scene, where styles like the Xiaopu Tangerine slot right in. “As sommeliers, we’re always curious about what’s new and interesting,” says Leanne Altmann, beverage director for the Trader House hospitality group in Melbourne. “The Tangerine’s been available by the glass at the Builders Arms [in Fitzroy] now for a while and it’s been really popular.” This is where, she says, new wine styles can “make the next leap into the mainstream: when they’re listed in restaurants not traditionally associated with them – when non-Chinese restaurants like ours start to list Chinese wines.”

There are some potential obstacles. Some wine-trade insiders grumble that the prices are too high; that the regions are too unfamiliar, the names too unpronounceable. Retailers have fielded questions from consumers about China’s environmental record (“are the wines safe to drink?”), working conditions (“do they use child labour in the vineyards?”), and politics (“what about Taiwan?”). But there is also a long history of cultural and economic exchange between the two countries when it comes to wine.

Australia has, for example, played a pivotal role in the development of China’s wine industry and wine market. In the 2010s, Australian red wine was hugely popular in China – until punitive tariffs imposed by Beijing in late 2020, in response to Canberra urging an inquiry into the source of COVID-19, led to the $1.3 billion market collapsing overnight. Although imports have not recovered fully since tariffs were removed in 2024, Australia has regained its position as China’s leading supplier of wine by both volume and value. There’s still a lot of goodwill there.

One of the most ambitious new Chinese producers is the 2000-hectare Xige Estate winery in Wuzhong, Ningxia.  Bloomberg via Getty Images

And Australia has educated many of China’s winemakers through oenology courses at institutions such as the University of Adelaide and exchange initiatives like Treasury Wine Estates’ Australia-China Winemaker Immersion Program.

In 2024, Penfolds acquired the Stone & Moon winery in Ningxia. Indeed, it was an Australian winemaker, the late Dr Tony Jordan, who LVMH charged with developing its luxury Chinese cabernet brand, Ao Yun, in 2009. Jordan settled on the mountainous region of Yunnan, in southern China, and predicted a future for cooler-climate varieties such as pinot noir, too. Now, Yunnan is home to some of the most exciting wines – and wine stories – in China.

Leqi Liu and Yuxuan Qiu, both winemakers in their early 30s, met while working at a winery in Hebei in 2021. They decided to make their own style of wine together and knew that there were some amazing grapes being grown in Yunnan. So, like a couple of micro-negociants in Burgundy, they went searching for growers, and eventually found three tiny plots of vines – less than a hectare all up – from which they could buy fruit to establish their Tinnyu label in 2022.

“At first we sold our wine only in China,” says Liu. “But after two years, we had the chance to go overseas, and now we think export is one of the best choices. Foreigners tend to be more interested.”

Fermentation tanks at Xige Estate, which aims to create authentically Chinese and internationally competitive wines.  Bloomberg via Getty Images

The reaction has been so positive that the pair have already planted another three hectares – chardonnay, a little gewürztraminer, muscat and riesling, and, crucially, pinot noir – and are planning to build a new winery. They join a growing band of quality-focused, new small-scale producers in this part of the world, including Mingyi, the solo project of Xiaoling Estate winemaker Feng Jian, which also debuted with the 2022 vintage, and Miao Lu, another new vineyard that may, when the first vintage is released later this year, take the story to another level again.

Shanghai-based chef Alex Xu planted the 2.5-hectare Miao Lu vineyard in the rocky soils of Yunnan five years ago. Everything about the project is extreme, from the altitude – 2800 metres up in the clouds – to the very close planting density – between 12,000 and 33,000 vines per hectare. Again, there’s an Australian connection.

While Xu says Miao Lu was initially inspired by Burgundy (from where he sourced his cuttings of chardonnay and pinot noir), he also credits working with Michael Dhillon at Bindi vineyard in the Macedon Ranges north of Melbourne. “Michael was the first to open my mind to what high-density vineyards could be,” says Xu. “He has been a very important mentor to me. I went to Bindi to learn technical things [and] came away with an understanding of the mentality and commitment it takes to be a vigneron.”

The first vintage from Alex Xu’s ambitious project will be released later this year with a price tag north of $500 a bottle – grand cru Burgundy numbers, from a small, close-planted vineyard in Yunnan, in the foothills of the Himalayas. And Xu says most of the tiny production will find its way into export markets rather than be sold locally. If you wanted a symbol of how dramatically China’s wine scene has changed in the past 10 years – and how dramatically it could continue to change – this is it.

Tasting China’s new wave

Xiaopu Gathering | Multi-region $48 | A remarkable blend of both red and white grape varieties – syrah, pinot noir, welschriesling, chardonnay, marselan – from regions across China. Like so many of Ian Dai’s wines, this taps into the modern trend for chilled reds. Bold scarlet colour, lots of lovely fragrant, bright red fruit, a touch of chewy tannin and a hint of sour cherry on the finish.

Lingering Clouds West Lake Girl Sparkling Chardonnay | Ningxia $60 | Winemaker Jianjun “Johnny” Liu adds Longjing green tea to his fermenting chardonnay juice and bottles the resulting wine as a pet-nat style, with no added sulphur dioxide. Refreshing, pretty grapefruit-pith flavours, beautiful foaming texture, the tea contributing a subtle perfumed character and some delicious, fine, mouth-watering tannin.

2023 Silver Heights Bloom | Ningxia $75 | Attractive, amber-coloured sparkling wine, made from pinot noir and chardonnay, with a splash of off-dry rice wine added as dosage, to produce a secondary ferment in bottle. Full flavours of rosehip and red apple, with a lively zestiness running along the tongue. “Co-ferments like this are a big part of the wine discussion in China,” says Hamish Williams.

2021 Xige Jade Dove Cabernet Gernischt | Ningxia $90 | Excellent example of the cabernet gernischt variety, brought into China a century ago from France, now known to be the old Bordeaux grape, carménère. Dark purple, intense, with bold, cabernet-like black glossy fruit, mid-weight and finely tannic in the mouth, finishing with a touch of dark complexity, and a whisper of Chinese medicinal herbs.

2025 Tinnyu Rosé | Yunnan $95 | A gorgeous, fragrant, bright rosé made from cabernet, syrah and chardonnay grapes farmed high up in the Shangri-La region of Yunnan. Pretty rose-petal aromas, some crunchy, cranberry-like red fruit, a beautiful life and freshness on the tongue, finishes crisp and lip-smacking, thanks to the natural acidity in the grapes grown at such high altitude.

2023 Mingyi Above the Creek Chardonnay | Yunnan $450 | This is only the second crop from Feng Jian’s Burgundy-inspired, high-density, high-altitude vineyard, but already his top chardonnay shows wonderful concentration and length of flavour. Intriguing, ethereal floral and citrus aromatics, some honeyed richness on the tongue, layered through with tingling acidity and a textural complexity.