Chinese wine grapes: Cabernet, Marselan, Cabernet Gernischt and the rest

A paper given at the 44th OIV Congress and published in BIO Web of Conferences in 2023 sorts China's wine grapes into three groups:

1. International varieties. The paper counts more than 50 in use today, including Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Gernischt, Cabernet Franc, Merlot, Syrah, Marselan, Petit Verdot, Pinot Noir, Alicante Bouschet, Chardonnay, Italian Riesling (Welschriesling), Gewürztraminer, Sauvignon Blanc and Riesling.
2. Chinese native species and their hybrids, such as Vitis amurensis and Vitis davidii, and crossings like Beichun, Beibinghong, Beimei, Beihong, Shuangyou and Yan 73.
3. Grapes used both for eating and for wine, such as Muscat and Longyan.

Red dominates. A 2021 book chapter on cold-climate winemaking in China by Ma Tengzhen and Han Shunyu, published by IntechOpen, puts red varieties at more than 80% of plantings and white at about 20%. The same chapter notes that most Chinese wine regions are cold enough that vines must be buried in winter and dug out in spring, which shapes which grapes can be grown at all.

The European vines go back to Changyu. Founded in Yantai in 1892, the company says it imported 124 varieties, 690,000 vines in all, from Europe, that most of them died, and that the European vines took once they were grafted onto local wild vines. Changyu also says that more than 90% of the varieties grown in China today were introduced and named by the company. That is the company's claim. The full story is in our history of Changyu.

Cabernet Sauvignon is China's main red grape in the Vitis study, and it is the backbone of the medal wines this directory records:

• Helan Qingxue's Jia Bei Lan 2009, the first Chinese wine to win a top Decanter award (an International Trophy in 2011), is 80% Cabernet Sauvignon, 15% Merlot and 5% Cabernet Gernischt.
• Dongfang Yuxing's Geruihong Yeguangbei 2022, a 2025 Decanter Best in Show at 97 points, is 85% Cabernet Sauvignon, 9% Dornfelder and 6% Cabernet Gernischt.
• Li's Estate Family Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon 2022, a 2025 Platinum at 97, is 85% Cabernet Sauvignon, 10% Syrah and 5% Merlot.
• Ao Yun, LVMH's estate below Meili Mountain in Yunnan, grows Cabernet Sauvignon at 2,200 to 2,600 metres. James Suckling gave the 2018 98 points, at the time his highest score for a Chinese wine.
• Pernod Ricard's Helan Mountain took a Decanter Gold at 95 for Xiao Feng Cabernet Sauvignon 2020.
• Jancis Robinson picked out Château Nine Peaks Cabernet Sauvignon 2011 from Qingdao in a blind tasting.

The grape also shows how much place matters. Writing for Vino Joy News in October 2026, Carol Yuan found Cabernet Sauvignon from Shangri-La's high vineyards showing red fruit, floral notes and fine, sometimes powdery tannins rather than the blackcurrant and cedar she expected. See our guide to the Shangri-La wine region.

Cabernet Gernischt is the grape most tied to Changyu. Jancis Robinson's grape entry explains that the name is thought to be a misspelling of "Cabernet gemischt", German for "mixed Cabernet", describing the mix of European cuttings brought to China in the late 19th century. She identifies the grape as Carmenère, and adds that some Chinese plantings under that name may in fact be Cabernet Franc. The international vine catalogue VIVC also lists Cabernet Gernischt as a synonym of Carmenère, according to the Vitis study.

Changyu's Noble Dragon (解百纳, Jiěbǎinà) is built on it. Noble Dragon N188 2022 from Yantai, one of China's first two Decanter Best in Show wines in 2025, is 75% Cabernet Gernischt; the Decanter results page gives the rest as 20% Cabernet Sauvignon and 5% Syrah, while the tasting note on the same page says 25% Cabernet Sauvignon. Changyu has pushed the grape as a Chinese signature and named 25 May "World Cabernet Gernischt Day".

It turns up in Ningxia too. Robinson describes Silver Heights' first vines as 15 hectares of mature Carmenère, known locally as Cabernet Gernischt, and it is the small share in both Jia Bei Lan and Yeguangbei. Shandong is where to start for the grape.

Marselan is the grape critics now watch most closely. Li Demei, writing in Decanter China in March 2017, gives its story: bred in France in 1961 by Paul Truel, with the research institutes INRA and ENSAM, and named after the town of Marseillan. Sylvia Wu, in Decanter, describes it as a cross of Cabernet Sauvignon and Grenache and writes that many people consider it the next signature grape of Chinese wine.

It reached China in 2001, on a 2.75-hectare plot at a Sino-French project in Huailai, Hebei, later called Domaine Franco-Chinois, where Li Demei made the first Chinese Marselan. In 2004 COFCO, the owner of Great Wall, took it to Penglai in Shandong, and from 2005 it was planted in Ningxia, the Yanqi Basin in Xinjiang, Taigu in Shanxi and elsewhere. Li gave its area in 2017 as over 4,000 mu, about 267 hectares. That is a 2017 figure, not today's. Li describes aromatic, deeply coloured wines with soft tannins that can age.

Marselans this directory records:

• Silver Heights Jiayuan Marselan, Ningxia. A retailer cites 93 points from James Suckling for the 2023.
• Dongfang Yuxing's Geruihong Marselan 2024, Ningxia, a Decanter Gold marked Top Value in 2025.
• Tiansai's Skyline of Gobi Grand Reserve Marselan 2017, Yanqi, a Decanter Silver.
• Château Zhongfei's barrel-aged Marselan 2014, Yanqi, and Grace Vineyard's Tasya's Reserve Marselan 2012, Taigu, both poured at Li Demei's 2017 ProWein masterclass.
• Treaty Port's The Commissioner, Penglai, and Marselan among the grapes at Château Nine Peaks.

Most of the other reds appear in blends. Merlot is the second red in the Vitis study and is in Jia Bei Lan and the Li's Estate Family Reserve. Syrah is in that Family Reserve and in the results-page blend of Noble Dragon N188. Dornfelder, a German grape, is 9% of Yeguangbei.

The estate lists go wider. Treaty Port's estate red is Grenache, Syrah, Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc, and its The Admiral is a Merlot. LVMH describes Ao Yun 2017 as Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Syrah and Petit Verdot, with Merlot for the first time. Château Nine Peaks lists Cabernet Franc, Petit Verdot, Merlot, Syrah and Alibernet among its grapes. James Suckling reports that Zhang Jing has been trialling Malbec at Helan Qingxue.

Pinot Noir is a small but named story. Sarah Kemp's account of Silver Heights records Pinot Noir, Sangiovese and Syrah imported in 2012, and Fongyee Walker MW, quoted in Upscale Living, says Peking duck pairs beautifully with Chinese Pinot Noir; the magazine names Kanaan's Chapter and Verse Mastery Pinot Noir and a Pinot Noir from Xige Estate. See our wine pairing guide.

Chardonnay is the most widely planted white in the Vitis study, and it gave China a headline in 2023: Xiao Ling's Hongpo Chardonnay 2021, from a 2,650-metre plot near Shangri-La, was JamesSuckling.com's China Wine of the Year, the first time that award went to a white. Helan Mountain makes a Xiao Feng Chardonnay, and Château Nine Peaks lists Chardonnay and Petit Manseng.

Riesling comes in two forms. Italian Riesling, or Welschriesling, is a different grape from Riesling, and the IntechOpen chapter names both, with Chardonnay, as the common whites. Kanaan, the Ningxia estate Robinson rated best overall in her blind tasting, makes Riesling, according to Suckling. Treaty Port's estate white is Viognier, Chardonnay and Muscat, and Walker, in Upscale Living, matches pulled lamb with Chateau Mihope Viognier, an estate this directory does not yet cover.

White is growing fast in the market, if not yet in the vineyard. Vinetur reported on 27 October 2026 that Yang Zhengjian, dean of the WBO Wine Business Academy, put white wine close to 30% of China's wine market by volume, up from a red-to-white ratio of about 9 to 1 a decade ago. He also said white accounted for 62.8% of Dynasty's revenue in the first half of 2026, and that limited dry-white capacity has led Dynasty and Great Wall to import bulk New Zealand wine for bottling in China. Those are his figures, given at a trade summit.

Sparkling wine in China is mostly a Ningxia story in the OIV paper. Chandon China, LVMH's sparkling estate at Yongning, opened in 2013, and Silver Heights makes a sparkling wine called Bloom. We haven't found either estate publishing the grapes it uses, so we don't guess here.

Icewine comes from the cold northeast and from Gansu, according to the OIV paper. Sylvia Wu names Chinese icewine, especially from Huanren in Liaoning, as a sweet wine for Peking duck, and writes that it is made in quantity and rarely exported. Changyu's Golden Icewine Valley in Liaoning is a joint venture with Canada's Aurora. This directory does not yet cover Liaoning.

China also grows vines of its own. The OIV paper lists native species such as Vitis amurensis, a cold-hardy wild grape from the northeast, and Vitis davidii, plus hybrids including Beichun, Beibinghong, Beimei and Beihong. A 2014 paper in Acta Horticulturae dates Chinese wine-grape breeding to 1954, when the Institute of Botany of the Chinese Academy of Sciences began crossing European vines with Vitis amurensis, and says Beichun was the main wine grape of southern China in the 1970s and 1980s.

Two older or stranger grapes are worth knowing. Longyan is an ancient variety grown in China for thousands of years for eating and for wine, according to the Vitis study. Yan 73 and Yan 74, crossed in 1966 from Muscat Hamburg and Alicante Bouschet, according to the same study, are teinturier grapes with red flesh, used for colour.

For every estate and its wines, see the directory of Chinese wineries; for the scores behind the medals, see critics and awards.