Red Violin of Puerh

I spent some lovely stretches on my swing finally catching upon summer reading.  The most enjoyable of the batch was the "Billionaire's Vinegar" - a non-fiction mystery about the scandal filled world of rare aged wines which was entirely applicable to the similarly murky world of aged pu-erh.   The title comes from a misrouted bottle of a 1787 Lafite supposedly ordered by my FFF Thomas Jefferson. Infamous wine collector Hardy Rodenstock "found" this bottle amongst other wine gems perfectly sealed up within the walls of an undisclosed Paris apartment during demolition.  The Forbes family bought this particular bottle via Christie's for $150,000 and stored it proudly under a toasty halogen light along with their other presidential memorabilia.  An employee with sharp eyes found the shrunken cork floating in the world's most expensive wine.  Forbes had never meant to drink this wine but bought it to own a piece of American history.  But did this wine really belong to Jefferson?  Was this wine even from 1787?

Only if someone would write a pu-erh page turner a la the"Red Violin".  Perhaps it could be about this 1895 imperial golden melon featured in this pu-erh documentary. You may desire to skip straight to the scene starting 7:42).



The author could interweave at least a century of Chinese history from the decline of the Qing all the way to the rampant capitalist China of today. The author could lard the story generously with useful details of puerh manufacture for types like us.  Maybe the author can exploit the inevitable switzeroo  plot device twice, once during the Cultural revolution and then a second time during the pu-erh boom years to multiple black market buyers one of whom could be Russian(or Bulgarian) mafiosi with a Chinese girlfriend.  (Video spoiler alert- were you as crestfallen as I was upon hearing that this golden melon was stored underground and had some "insecticide" issues. After that, I definitely agreed that "we dare not covet the emperor's golden melon."  )

Back to the original book review- the most unfortunate and glaring parallel between the world of aged wine and aged pu-erh revolve around rampant forgery and the suckers who fall for them.  Most commonly it wasn't oenophiles(a.k.a. serious wine drinkers) but rich people with too much money that would pony up for these outrageously priced aged wines to display in a trophy collection. (I also was scratching my head for the proper term for pu-erh lovers- puerhophiles? We have to be very careful with the spelling since "puer" could be mistakenly interpreted in an ancient Greek direction.  A bit dorkier but magnafoliophile is definitely a safer way to go but my latin is completely rusty so if someone could suggest something more elegant.)  

By the time someone does open a bottle and find it undrinkable,  most people don't know enough about aged wines to deem it a fake and may just blame bad storage conditions.  But just suggestion and price tag alone sometimes would convince drinkers the authenticity of a bottle.  Those who knew enough to find themselves had,  they cannot prove conclusively that a wine was fake or it may be too late to catch up with the original perpetrator in a long chain of middle-men spanning the centuries.  According to this book,  even the venerable auction houses Sotheby's and Christies were well aware of fakes exploding in the market place, but they were only too happy to be party to the commissions generated by such a lucrative market. 

For me, one of the most useful nuggets was the lack of a conclusive scientific method to date wines older than 65 years.  Scientists can measure the presence of radioactive compounds to determine that a wine predates the atomic age. Wines after 1945 hold certain levels of decaying tritium or cesium-137 which match against a time curve.  Probably there is a new curve which goes against Chernobyl and now Fukushima. Unfortunately such tests are the foray of hyper-expensive labs; a home Geiger counter simply will not cut it. 

Madeira and Puerh - Fraternal Twins

Dear readers, I have sent a strongly worded letter to Jim of puerhshop and am giving him time to respond. I have decided to take a brief break from my investigative efforts to delve into something more pleasurable.

I have a confession to make. In my real closet underneath my numerous trench coats and hats, you will not find a box of pu-erh but rather a homely collection of Madeira.  You will see that our favorite tea has many many similarities with this fortified wine from a Portuguese island.  I have been meaning to tie these two brethren together for years I apologise for the lack of a side by side photo shoot and you are left with a finch nest next to a tuo.

The beverage of choice for pirates and American founding fathers alike, Madeira is a wine pu-erh lovers can appreciate either in spirit or in the flesh.  Unlike other wines which spoiled with exposure to heat and air,  Madeira benefited from a long hot humid trans-Atlantic crossing making it the beverage of choice for pirates and American founding fathers alike.   The intense heat and tumbling in the seas transformed young Madeira into something mellow and delicious.  No one need gasp "Tea Horse Road".  You can imagine if we had to trot our pu-erh around in addition to the heat for serious aging! 

Producers now simulate this long ocean voyage through the tropics with a process called "estufagem" which applies some form of heating to age the wine and sometimes simulated motion.  Top-end Madeira is heated only by the sun and can take a decade to even a century to age.  I have only had the pleasure to try fifteen year olds.  Mass producers use heat coils to crank out Madeira in 90 days, but even a low-end Madeira produced in this artificial way could be quite pleasing and tasty. 

Like many of his fellow colonists, Thomas Jefferson initially loved Madeira though later in life he disavowed Madeira in favor of French wines after touring the wine growing regions of France.  Although Jefferson is considered America's first wine conossieur, he may also a been the first great wine bore as pointed out deliciously in this New Yorker article.

“There was, as usual, a dissertation upon wines,” John Quincy Adams noted in his diary after dining with Jefferson in 1807. “Not very edifying.”

By 1815, Jefferson complained to his wine merchant, "Besides the exorbitance of price to which Madeira is got, it is a wine which I do not drink, being entirely too powerful." Cranky words coming from a man who ordered 4400 bottles of Madeira during his presidential term.  He is stil my FFF - favorite founding father.  (This is an aside, but I grew up in Virginia where the founding fathers are legend. When I moved to California, the natives thought it strange I would even ask them about their FFF. It is one of those questions which can reveal something unexpected about someone's character and bring American history lovers out of the closet. Unfortunately it appears  any questions about our colonial past does not to work too well outside of the Eastern seaboard.  Most Californians lamentably think Benji Franklin is the only interesting FF worth considering, but his woeful neglect and treatment of his wife puts him firmly out of my FFF list.)

Madeiras are said to exhibit surprising vitality and freshness even after a century.  I hope to gain a first hand opinion  by my sixtieth birthday.  Since Madeira is not bothered by oxidation,  you can enjoy an open bottle for years. In my pantry next to my honey jars sit my open bottles of Madeira.  The bottles look kind of all same and the risk is that one's husband can easily and wrongly use a cherished bottle for cooking pot roast. Repeatedly.

Just like a bit of shu, you  have to air out Madeira for a day before you drink it.  And since I don't remember I want it until the afternoon, I end up sipping a lot of Madeira for breakfast.  And like a good shu,  Madeira makes pork taste even more delicious if that's even possible.  There is a pleasure in enjoying things which have gained nuance through aging.  Lucky for me and you the world holds a treasure trove of such lovely aged edibles and imbibables.