(An editorial by Guillaume Jourdan)
Most of the wine lovers have heard about a frightening story in Burgundy at the world-renowned Domaine de la Romanee Conti. Aubert de Villaine, co-director of the Domaine, received a letter which threatened to poison all the vines of his vineyards if he did not respond positively to a blackmail scheme. At a retail price of over Eur 8,000 for a bottle of DRC’s Romanée-Conti (only 4.4 acres), the extortionist decided to focus on a specific estate which is highly regarded internationally.
Even if the man was arrested, this story makes security issues for luxury wines a new topic to investigate. In China, the same kind of issue has been adressed in a specific domain: rare tea trees. Far from the lovely villages in Burgundy, luxury tea producers took a measure in order to protect their unique expensive production: they hired guards. In the Wuyi Shan chain of mountains, located in the northern part of the Fujian province, is a natural reserve with pure water, deep hills and some unique tea plantations. The “yan cha”, as they called it in Chinese, is a wulong variety planted on extremely steep hills. In these beautiful mountains, you can still find specific tea plants from the best “grands crus”. Da Hong Pao, Tie Luo Han or Shui Jing Gui are some names that come to mind and which are still alive in this place. Protected by guards, night and day, this small reserve of first generation tea plants only produce a few hundreds of grams sold at extremely high price. Rare and expensive like the wines from Domaine de la Romanee Conti. But protected 24 hours a day, unlike Romanée Conti…
(You can reach the writer at info@vitabella.fr)
