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Pu’er with a similar focus on terroir
On 30th October 2012, the town of Libourne, in the heart of the vineyards of Saint-Émilion – Pomerol – Fronsac, and the city of Pu’Er set up a cultural and economic exchange around their respective cultures: wine and tea.
Although more than 9,000 kilometres separate one from the other, these two towns have focussed on paying tribute to the key aspects of their heritage and highlighting the many similarities between their two worlds.
Tea and wine are products of everyday life. Tasting and cultivation represent key values for both.
The importance of the terroirs and the adaptation between plant, soil and climate. The influence of weather on each vintage’s characteristics or harvesting period. The ways in which different varieties suit each other, sorting, blending, fermentation, even the art of tasting and ageing are all common features that the two cultures can discuss and compare.
Tasting is an act of sharing and friendship for both tea and wine; it is an art which has been developed by both cultures. While great wines just like vintage teas from Pu’Er have potential for ageing and deserve several years patience before enjoying them, their tasting involves equivalent rituals.
First of all the beverages are allowed to breathe and left to awaken.
Wine is decanted to settle, whereas tea is washed before its initial infusion.
The choice of receptacle is paramount. Just like glasses, cups allow aromas to develop better.
Once the beverages are served, the colours are observed and then the primary, secondary and tertiary aromas are smelled and assessed. Only then can they be drunk, at which point their aromatic complexity is fully revealed.
In 2016, the National Tea Museum in Pu’Er accomplished the significant step of hosting an exhibition on the wines of Saint-Émilion – Pomerol – Fronsac. This was a page in a shared history that focused on their similarities, especially their philosophies around the concept of terroir.
It was important to bring the two cultures together. It turned out to be a great success because 150,000 visitors have come through the exhibition’s doors in the last year and a half.
It took eighteen months to conceive and design this event, which was inaugurated on 9th December 2016 in the presence of many French and Chinese VIPs.From start to finish, attention to detail was the watchword. The event’s logo depicts a tree with shared roots, displaying tea leaves and vine leaves, symbolising the alliance between the two cultures.
The exhibition itinerary is fluid, pleasant, fun and intelligent. Visitors go from the vine’s growth cycle to vinification. Fermentation, barrel ageing and blending are all explained.
The section devoted to bottling displays the different sizes of bottles, labelling and cork manufacturing.
The guardians of tradition, including our dear Jurade, also enjoy the limelight in a section devoted to the rituals, garments and accessories of the four wine brotherhoods in Saint-Émilion – Pomerol – Fronsac. Lastly, the cellars and emblematic landscapes of the region round off the exhibition, alongside a holographic model of Bordeaux’s Cité du Vin.
To build the different displays, more than three hundred artefacts from winegrowers, coopers, bottlers and collectors were assembled, some of which required restoration. Almost one hundred photos, posters and illustrations were also incorporated into the exhibition. Many interactive and multisensory modules, a video area, a cooper’s workshop, a table with different aromas around it and a section on the UNESCO world heritage listing round off the exhibition, making it an immersive and comprehensive visit.
The exhibition invites visitors on a real journey through time and space, enabling them to understand the very soul of Saint-Émilion – Pomerol – Fronsac wines and the similarities that exist between them and Pu-Ehr teas.
Pu’Er teas and Saint-Émilion – Pomerol – Fronsac wines are united by a common notion of terroir and quality. Through this subtle association, it is these resonances that the city of Pu’Er, the city of Libourne and the wines of Saint-Émilion – Pomerol – Fronsac wanted to develop and honour.
