Taipei, Taiwan
Wine exports to Asia have been growing these last years including for natural wine and Taiwan which is known for its great food also joined the fray for wines made without correction or additives. This story is about the first Taiwan-based importer exclusively centered on these wines, here is Rebecca Yeh, who set up her
company C'est le Vin a few years ago in Taipei.
Starting with a handful of French producers in the first year, Rebecca now imports a few dozens, and C'est le Vin has become the Taiwanese hub for natural wines.
Rebecca had worked for a wine distributor here and had come across organic wine but here experience with these wines was so-so [winemaking of mainstream "organic wines" is often conventional, making them pretty disappointing]. Rebecca discovered natural wines through Japanese importer Yoshio Ito (pictured on right in Taipei with Derain & Rebecca) who had her taste wines from Alexandre Bain, Clos Rougeard and Marc Pesnot as well as Dard & Ribo. After that she had the opportunity to travel in France and visit these producers as well as others and this trip really turned the tide, making her realize how these wines were really different, not only delicious to drink but with all the other aspects which she discovered while travelling there. She remember at the time asking all the winemakers what was natural wine and she was touched by the shared answer they had, relating to truthness, respect of the earth and harmonious relations with other people. She felt she had to bring this all to Taiwan and have the Taiwanese people and wine lovers enjoy a good selection themselves. Japan was for that a good inspiration and she learned from its importers how to best take care of these wines, as Taiwan also has a climate that can be harmful to wines if these aren't properly stored and shipped.
But to rewind back to the beginning, here is how it really started, with her studies in France : Rebecca had had prior experiences with wine in Taiwan, her mother and father liked to enjoy wine from time to time with friends and in Taiwan people often start with Bordeaux and then taste Burgundy; Rebecca didn't pay attention to labels but she just remembers one day having with her parents a wine she liked
more than before, a wine with something
extra in terms of emotion, and this was a Burgundy. Then she planned to go to France study French language and later possibly Art, she looked about where to go, skipping Paris for its high costs, she zeroed on either Tours (Loire) or Burgundy.
While looking for information on both regions and university towns, she went through blog entries written by Taiwanese students, this was about student life in Dijon, their daily life and all the side things they were doing there, she felt excited by these testimonies and chose to go to Dijon, Burgundy where she stayed from 2009 to 2011. While there studying French in her first year, she visited wineries and tasted wines with fellow Taiwanese and Japanese students and she felt that wine was really exciting, thus deciding to switch her plans from Art to enrolling in a wine business school after mastering the French language, this would be ESC Dijon. During her time studying wine she also worked at Caveau de Chassagne, a négoce, and her knowledge about wine improved but at the time she didn't know yet about the different ways to make wine, meaning the difference between conventional and fully non-interventionist winemaking, the school having no courses about the issue.
Back in Taipei, Rebecca worked a while for a wine distribution company and at one point after having discovered natural wines she decided to start her own company centered on these wines, this was in 2015. At the beginning she imported some 10 producers and today after 3
years she imports 30 + producers. In 2015
she had to do all the groundwork as the Taiwanese wine public wasn't aware of these wines and how different they were, both in taste and in their production mode, in just 3 years the approach and understanding of the public has dramatically changed for the better in this regard.
Rebecca wants to offer a wide choice of wines including in terms of prices so that the wine amateurs can experience the diversity of the natural wines, so she imports limited quantities of each selected cuvées, plus, as you may know, many of these producers are in high demand and limit the allocation volumes so as to satisfy all the clients. Rebacca says that Oeno Connexion which is run by Mr Ito (here's his blog and also my profile on him) helped her a lot because they have a long experience with importing these wines to the Japanese market, and he could explain to the producers the importance of the Taiwanese market, even though a smaller in size compared to Japan's. That's important because when you export to another country, you have to go through a lot of administrative paperwork, and some producers might have given up, especially with the small volumes involved.
Right now Rebecca imports natural wines from France only but in the future she will add wines from other countries as well, like Italy and Spain for example. At first she had one shipping per year but now with the increasing volumes she handles she has two shippings; the storage facility here in Taipei is small and she can't
receive too much wine at once. At the beginning she hadn't really a place to receive private buyers
and also it was really a one-person operation so she kept the door shut, she'd do the administrative part, the ordering, the shipping to her clients, the accounting...
With the growing volume of activity she moved to this place in the Daan district where the office, the storage and the tasting room are all under one roof and hired someone to help, including when she's not there. She can thus also receive visitors and private buyers, there are even foreigners sometimes showing up here (people from Brazil, New York, Japan, Korea), they discover the place thanks to Raisin, the Natural Wine App and come here to buy a few bottles.
She also holds tastings in there regularly, but these are professional tastings meant for a selection of cavistes and restaurateurs, and they take place sometimes with the irreplaceable presence of winemakers in person, like here Rhône producer René-Jean Dard (Dard & Ribo) or also Dominique Derain from Burgundy, so that people could interact directly with the people who made these wines and worked in the vineyard. She now typically holds such a tasting a couple of months after a shipping has arrived (time to let the wine recover). And the delivered bottles are usually all sold within 3 or 4 months.
In the bottom of the office, behind a tightly-insulated door, there's the cellar filled with cases of wine, including with piles of crates in the middle. The temperature was set to stay between 13 ° C and 15 ° C (55,4 - 59 F) with aircon blocks fixed in different corners of the
room, and the wine is stored there around
the year. Temperature controlled storage is even more important in this part of the world than in Europe because temperatures are very high in summer. She needs back labels here in Taiwan with specific informations required by the administration and she prints them herself so as not to bother the producers with additional paperwork for these low volumes. The administration also asks for a lab analysis less than 2 years old for a wine being imported.
There's obviously available room for more wine here, Rebecca says that her last shipment arrived in june and lots of wine has gone already, she'll have soon another one coming in. She says that when the wine has come they contact the regular customers who have been waiting for their delivery. I look around, there are all these names I'm familiar with, Dard & Ribo, Philippe Jambon and others, there's even sake, Rebecca imports one from Japan, it's a naturally-made sake, Keigetsu, she knows the brewer and how he works.
You'd think this whole enterprise is already enough for this young woman, but Rebecca also embarked into the project of setting up a wine tasting event centered on natural wines, something that had never been done before in Taiwan. She held her first Buvons Nature (the name of the event is in French but everyone can understand this around the world today...) in 2016. Her idea for this project was that she wanted to have people in Taiwan understand what natual wine is about, and from the day
she set up her import business she knew already that she'd organize such an event in her country.
For her, that's the best way to make these wines known and appreciated to a large public. In 2016 (only 2 years behind) natural wine wasn't much popular or known here in Taiwan, in spite of a few importers bringing some of these wines in their generic portfolio. The problem is, these importers didn't emphasize the natural character of these wines, doing so would certainly have raised questioning about how their other wines were made...
One of the reasons she set up the first tasting event by herself in 2016 was that she was not sure she'd find associates interested in taking part, there was some risk because at the time natural wines were still largely below the radar and there had never been such a tasting event before, here. With the hindsight after the 1st event she had material to show for prospective partners and the following year she contacted 3 people to join her in the project, 2 were importers and one is a prominent Taiwanese wine writer who has a wide readership not only in Taiwan but in continental China as well (he wrote 14 books on wine), Yusen Lin (see his webpage). After criticizing these wines in his writings, Mr Yusen Lin began to fully appreciate them along the years and he even travelled extensively in France to visit a few producers there. With the weight of the two importers and the fame of Mr Lin, the tasting event quickly gained momentum, attracting more visitors. In 2018 they had two more partners taking part, people with PR experience this time for a better communication.
In 2018 they invited 10 Taiwan-based importers (including herself and the two who are partners) to have them present a selection of natural wines, and oddly it was obvious in 2018 that even major importers felt compelled to take part, even with in some cases only a couple of cuvées, this shows that the trend is serious and that major import house, even if otherwise dealing mostly with mainstream wines, don't want to
be left on the side of the road. Plus, regular clients of these companies begin to ask for
these wines and they have to pay attention and provide.
Asked if she was inspired by a particular tasting event when she visualized Buvons Nature (I was thinking to Festivin in Tokyo, which has become a successful model), Rebecca says that as she did everything by herself for the first event, she didn't try to replicate a large event like Festivin. At Festivin they have a table for each importer while at the Dive it's every vigneron showing his wines, and in 2016 as she was the only importer to take part she chose to have the different wine regions separate, on different tables, which was easier for the visitors. On the 2nd year even though two more importer took part in addition to herself, they kept displaying the wines per region, even if several importers offered competing wines for a given region, the idea again being to be visitor-friendly. For the 3rd year in 2018 they mixed the regions and divided the wines into categories (14 of them), like Pet'Nat, Orange wines, Rosés, Clairets, Carbos and so on and this was a good thing too, visitors would discover the region afterwards for each wine but could taste side by side wines of the same category. The number of wines at Buvons Nature went up from 33 cuvées in 2016 to 40-50 in 2017 and 70 + in 2018 with 300 paying visitors (380 when counting staff, vignerons and partners).
You can see on this Pdf file all the categories and the wines poured at the event.
In 2018 the fee for the event (early purchase) was 1900 NT$ or 54 €.
The event lasts 4 to 5 hours in a location 50 minutes from downtown Taipei, people can eat (food is included) and this year the staff cooked a whole pig, she thought there would be too much food but it was so good all was gone at the end. Such a tasting event is each time a challenge but the feedback is very encouraging, people
come to them to praise the event and want it repeated the following year. In 2018 one of the unplanned
challenges was that the date happened to be an important election day in Taiwan, so important that people had to line in queues
to vote and some people missed the tasting because of that. They couldn't anticipate because the date for the tasting event had been set many months before, but the election date was set later and unexpectedly coincided with the tasting. Festivin in Tokyo also took place the same weekend and they certainly lost potential Japanese visitors because of this.
For the following years they'll coordinate with the people of Festivin so as there's at least a week gap between the 2 events, this will allow Japanese wine lovers to attend the two events, something many will like to do. Mr Yoshio Ito the natural wine importer told Rebecca after the 2nd event that Taiwan can become the hub as regional capital for these natural-wine events, because it's easy to go there from Japan, mainland China, Singapore, Hong Kong and other countries, plus Taipei is cheap for the Japanese and its famed food scene makes it a very attractive weekend destination. This comment from someone who knows a lot made her more confident for the future of Buvons Nature.
Of course after the tasting, there's the usual Paulée or repas de vignerons with the sommeliers, professionals and invited vignerons, and Dominique Derain was there too in 2018, I can visualize the ambiance, terrific
opportunity as always to exchange in a warmful mood with all the wines, makes these
events unique...
The other participating vignerons in 2018 were Thomas Carsin (Clos de L'Elu), Adrien Berlioz (Cellier des Cray), Marjorie Gallet (le Roc des Anges) and Benoit Chazallon (Chateau de la Selve). The fee for this Paulée in 2018 was 2600 NT$ or 74 €. You could also purchase the package (Tasting event + Paulée) for 4500 NT$ or 128 €.
Speaking about Derain whom she knowns since 2013 when she visited him in Burgundy, he was supposed to come for the 1rst Buvons Nature in 2016 but at the last minute he couldn't board his flight because his passport was obsolete, so he called Julien Altaber right away, asked him if he had his passport and told him to pack his bag in rush and come to the airport, that was a surprise for Julien but he could do it... A dinner was scheduled before the event with Dominique Derain and Mr Ito had a mask of Derain printed and he wore it at the beginning of the dinner to make the best of this bad luck (Rebecca kept this mask as a trophy-pic on left). Derain ended up coming at last two years after, in 2018, with a valid passport...
At the end of the day, we had dinner with Rebecca and a friend of hers at RéeL : that's an up and coming restaurant serving delicious French-inspired cuisine along with terrific wines. Taipei has no shortage of good restaurants
(even street restaurants can be excellent) but here you have the refined cuisine, an excellent wine
list and very affordable prices indeed. Raven Chen spent time in Europe, he's both the cook and the owner. This is the type of restaurant with a demanding approach for the cooking where there's a real reflection regarding the wines, they won't just put flashy chateaux here (although there's a nice list of prestigious Bodreaux as well), just the good stuff, including table wine category.
I remember we all chose different dishes and everything was brilliant, it was strange to eat this lovely magret de canard here in Taipei. Prices were indeed moderate for this level of cuisine, the magret served with delicately-cooked brocoli was at 680 TW$ [100 TW$ make 2,86 €], the travers de porc sauce barbecue was 680 NT$, the filet de boeuf au poivre noir de Jamaïque 880 NT$, the coq au vin 520 NT$, the pasta bucatini al pesto 430 NT$, to name a few of the main dishes. Among the entrées to cite a few of them, you had baba ganoush avec croustilles de crevettes for 220 NT$, crême brûlée au fois gras 430 NT$, salade vosgienne 380 NT$, assortiment de jambon cru italien 640 NT$, asperges grillées avec saumon fumé 320 NT$ (and more...).
For the wine with our several-course dinner at Réel restaurant we has a Clos Fantine la Lanterne Rouge 2017, a delicious red, priced 1300 NT$ or 37 €. Equally delicious with the magret de canard. The wine menu is terrific here, especially considering we're at the other side of the world from the artisan winemakers who made these wines. Here are a few of the wines spotted among the long list of
mostly natural wines, and this is just a short extract, plus they have quite a few
Italian wines as well (1000 NT $ = 28 €):
Ganevat (lots of other cuvées) le Zaune à Dédé 2200 NT$; Domaine des Ardoisières Argile Blanc 20160 1350 NT$; Domaine Ozil vin de France La Rochette 2016 1250 NT$; Dard & Ribo Croze-Hermitage blanc 2016 12600 NT$; Le Temps des Cerises la Peur du Rouge, white vin de France 2014 1200 NT$; Clos Venturi 1769 white Corsica 2016 1000 NT$; Bobinet Amateus Bobi 2016 1680 NT$; Villemade red Cheverny 2017 1200 NT$; Lapalu Brouilly Vielles Vignes 2016 1450 NT$; Irancy la Croix Buteix, Viti Vini Vinci 2015 1500 NT$; Gilles Burguet Gevrey Chambertin Lavaux Saint jacques 2010 2700 NT$; Chateau Haut Brion Pessac Leognan 2003 35 000 NT$; Chateau Margaux 1998 32 000 NT$; Chateau Calon Segur Saint Estèphe 2012 4200 NT$; Ganevat Le Jaja du Ben 2015 1350 NT$; Dard & Ribo C-H rouge 2016 1500 NT$; Pibarnon Bandol 2007 2000 NT$; Clos Fantine la Lanterne rouge 2016 1300 NT$; Domaine Mylène Bru vin de France red Violet de Mars 2016 1350 NT$; La Grande Année Bollinger Champagne 2004 4000 NT$; Marie Demets 19ème Siècle Champagne 2650 NT$; Gosset Grand Rosé Brut Champagne 2550 NT$; Agrapart 7 Crus Champagne 2300 NT$; Tissot Crémant du Jura 1250 NT$; Domaine Bureau Saperlipopette vin de France Pet'Nat 2017 1300 NT$; Ostertag Clos Mathis Riesling 2013 1400 NT$; Sansonnière la Lune 2013 1600 NT$; Mickael Bouges vin de France Water L'Eau 2015 1250 NT$; Coulée de Serrant 2016 3800 NT$;
Chinese signs and Japanese kanji have a common base and B. often could partially read the signs in Taiwan, although not fully, and here Rebecca explained us a hidden meaning behind the Chinese version of the company name C'est Le Vin : deciphering the Chinese characters one by one she explains that Chinese ideograms are usually composites of several signs and here (on the left) she stylized the one meaning "Here is" or "Voilà" (in French) so that the upper part of the sign looks like a glass, and replacing the ideogram for wine (which already looks a bit like a bottle) by an elegant bottle of wine, making her sign read literally like "Here is the Wine" or "C'est le Vin"...
Taipei is a city with vibrant markets, some being night markets, which I understand is very convenient in summer when the temperature is very high during the day. These markets have also lots of food stalls and small family restaurants where you can sample the food diversity on the island, often for only 120-150 Taiwanese Dollars (3,4 to 4,3 €). Taiwan remained unscathed during the turbulent years when the mainland saw lots of destruction, including in its cultural assets and the food culture. You'll never forget how good is the pork you eat in many of these places...
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