In a function room at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre, Jean-Guillaume Prats, president of Moet Hennessy Estates & Wines, presents a dramatic video of swirling white clouds over snow-capped mountains, long-haired yaks, old women in colourful dress, and terraced hills.

These images set the scene for the launch of Ao Yun, translated as “sacred cloud”, the company’s first foray into making wine from scratch in Deqin county, in northern Yunnan province bordering Tibet and Myanmar.

As Prats noted in his presentation at Vinexpo, the annual wine and spirits exhibition, the China market is a promising one, with consumption of red wine increasing compared with that of traditional tipple baijiu, and growing numbers of young middle-class drinkers, hence Moet’s lofty ambition – literally and figuratively – to make one of the greatest wines in the world there.

While Moet Hennessy has produced a sparkling wine in Ningxia, below the Gobi Desert in northern China, the company’s CEO, Christophe Navarre, felt it was time to try to make a red wine, and sent Australian wine scientist, consultant and winemaker Tony Jordan on a three-year journey around China to find the perfect spot.

Image Courtesy and full article can be found at source : http://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/food-drink/article/1975022/moet-hennessy-has-high-ambition-ao-yun-red-wine-chinas-yunnan