How a self-proclaimed ‘arrogant’ Frenchman added European twists to Chinese rice wine

Frenchman Olivier Sublett has been making wine from rice for two years. The Chinese have been making rice wine for about 9,000 years, but that isn’t stopping Sublett selling them his version.

“I’m French, so I’m arrogant. I’m from Bordeaux, so I’m top of the podium for that,” says Sublett.

Perhaps he is being a bit harsh on himself. After some trial and error, the first edition (it’s not a vintage) of his rice wine was released this February.It’s a complicated offer – it tastes like grape wines, is fairly easy to drink, but with a little more complexity than the average quaff. It tastes nothing like Chinese yellow wine or Japanese sake.

Le Guishu yellow wine comes as dry, semi dry and semi sweet. I first tried the semi dry and dry at a barbecue, because I couldn’t find a polite way to turn down something I expected to taste like cooking wine. The slightly acidic dry, which is blended with 20 per cent ugni blanc grapes from France’s Cognac region, is bright, citrusy and a little salty, as is the semi dry. The flavours of grapefruit or pomelo I noticed reminded me a little of some Alsace-style white wines. Both wines went well with tandoori-style chicken straight off the charcoal grill, and at a later date with Margherita and Napoli pizzas. The semi sweet wine has a hint of cloves and a more pronounced flavour of orange zest, and makes a good match with foie gras.

Sublett says these white-like wines are a surprisingly good match with meats and, perhaps unexpectedly, oysters, but come into their own when matching many Asian cuisines. Chillies are notorious for clashing with the tannins in wine, killing much of the complexity. These wines have no tannins, so it’s not an issue.