Where to Drink Chinese Wine in Shanghai and Macau

A good wine list is a shortcut. Someone has already tasted their way through the country and picked the bottles worth your money.

That job has got much easier. Jim Boyce, who writes the Grape Wall of China blog and judged this year's finalists, counted labels from over 70 Chinese producers across the seven finalist lists in the 2026 China's Wine List of the Year Awards. Ningxia and Yunnan led, he wrote, but there were wines from all over, including lesser-known Sichuan and Gansu. Several lists carried 20-plus Chinese producers, with their own sections explaining regions and styles.

Boyce remembers when it was different: once, he wrote, only Grace Vineyard and giants like Changyu and Great Wall turned up on menus, "if you could find any local wines at all."

The awards themselves are run by China's Wine List of the Year, started in 2012 by Rob Hirst of Tucker Seabrook and Tommy Lam of the Asia Wine Institute. The 2026 winners were announced in Shanghai on 22 October. Toni Paterson MW, co-chair of the judges, said it was "particularly pleasing to see Chinese wines taking an increasingly prominent place on the lists."

Steak by Roosevelt & Sky Bar (House of Roosevelt): best Chinese wine list 2026

If you only have one evening, this is the one. The awards named Steak by Roosevelt & Sky Bar China's Best Listing of Chinese Wines for 2026. (Grape Wall calls the winner simply "Roosevelt House.")

It's inside the House of Roosevelt (罗斯福公馆, Luósīfú Gōngguǎn), a historic building right on the Bund, Shanghai's old riverfront, at 27 Zhongshan Dong Yi Road (27 The Bund), Shanghai 200002. It was still operating as of this autumn: it hosted a blind-tasting competition in June 2026, and city listings updated in October 2026 describe the restaurant and the 8th-floor sky bar as open.

The awards don't say which Chinese bottles are on the list, and we haven't seen it. Ask the sommelier to show you the Chinese section and pick for you.

8½ Otto e Mezzo Bombana: China's Wine List of the Year 2026

The overall winner for mainland China is an Italian restaurant, which tells you something about how far Chinese wine has come: it now earns space on a list built to go with someone else's cuisine.

According to the awards' winners page, the list runs to 584 wines, 19 of them by the glass, looked after by sommeliers Ada Zhang and Moe Zhou. It also took Best Wine List for Eastern China, best independent restaurant list, and best aperitif and digestif lists. You'll find it on the 6th floor of the Associate Mission Building, 169 Yuanmingyuan Road, Huangpu District, a short walk behind the Bund.

Terroir et Somm Au Bouchon: best wine bar list

Want something less formal than a tasting menu? The judges named Terroir et Somm Au Bouchon China's Best Wine Bar Wine List for 2026. The awards don't publish its address or how much Chinese wine it pours, so check its listing and ask when you arrive.

Sheng Yong Xing, The Bund: best food and wine matching

Sheng Yong Xing's Bund restaurant won China's Best Food & Wine Matching List for 2026. If you want to see how wine works with Chinese cooking, this is a good place to test it. Our Chinese food and wine pairing guide explains the basics before you go.

Chef Tam's Seasons (Wynn Palace, Cotai)

Macau, the former Portuguese territory an hour's ferry from Hong Kong, has the year's biggest single Chinese-wine story. Chef Tam's Seasons, a Cantonese restaurant at Wynn Palace in Cotai, is the 2026 Wine List of the Year for Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan. The winners page lists 1,700 wines, 38 by the glass, under sommelier Troy Jiang. It also won best hotel restaurant list, best Chinese restaurant list and best Chinese spirits list, and was a finalist for the best Chinese wine list.

The detail that caught Jim Boyce's eye: the list carries Chardonnay from 17 different Chinese producers, from Shandong, Shanxi, Ningxia, Sichuan and Yunnan. "You would be hard put a decade ago," he wrote, "to find a menu with 17 local producers in total." If you've ever wondered whether Chinese white wine is worth a try, this is the place to compare several side by side.

The other two finalists for best Chinese wine list are both in Beijing. Fu Chun Ju, a Cantonese restaurant at 1 Wangfujing Street, Dongcheng, also won Best Wine List for Northern China; the awards list 330 wines, 28 by the glass. Somm's Table won Best New Wine List. And if you'd rather see the vineyards, Huailai in Hebei, the closest wine country to the capital, makes an easy day trip. See our guide to wineries near Beijing.

We can't tell you which bottles are on these lists, because the awards don't publish them. But Jim Boyce's notes on the 2025 finalist lists give you a feel for the range: Marselan, Petit Manseng, Riesling, Black Muscat and Vidal, not just Bordeaux grapes. If you see a grape you don't know, our guide to Chinese wine grapes explains each one in a paragraph. Ningxia makes many of the reds you'll see, and our Ningxia region page tells you who's who. Our critics page lists the writers who taste Chinese wine regularly.

Our suggestion (an opinion, not a judges' finding): ask for one Chinese white and one Chinese red by the glass and compare them with the food.

ProWine Shanghai, the trade-only wine and spirits fair, takes place 10–12 November 2026 at the Shanghai New International Expo Center (SNIEC), Halls W4–W5. It opens 10:00–18:00 on 10 and 11 November and 10:00–16:00 on 12 November, according to the fair's website. That's a good reason to book a table for the evenings now: the dinners above are a faster tour of Chinese wine than anything you'll fit into a fair day.

• Drink it: book Steak by Roosevelt & Sky Bar or 8½ Otto e Mezzo in Shanghai, or Chef Tam's Seasons in Macau.
• Visit it: see our Visit hub for wineries you can actually tour.
• Read next: Chinese wine guide · Chinese wine grapes · Ningxia