Cabernet Gernischt from the Changyu company.

I was browsing through an online wine list and naturally one red wine stood out from the rest, as there were only one single candidate of red wine from China.

This Luciferian, of course, always thinks differently and while the majority of people swear to wine from a French or Italian wine district, I had the intuition to select and order two bottles immediately without blinking, trusting my instincts.

After doing some research, it turns out that the Cabernet Gernischt grape – also occasionally spelt as ‘Cabnernet Gernischet’ – an ancestor of today’s Cabernet Franc – was introduced to China in 1892, and it is now unique to China after it was believed to be wiped out during the blight which affected most of the Wine districts in Europe, most notably in France.

This grape has survived and has been grown after old French techniques to this day, and is perhaps as, if not more, authentic than many of today’s French wines.