Yao: Deke introduced me to fine wine

NBA Hall of Famer Yao Ming has a winery that’s better than you think, and a new tasting room where you can judge for yourself.

[rquoter]A week after attending this year’s NBA All-Star Game, Yao Ming flew to Napa, California, for the opening of his winery’s first tasting room. He was two hours late, which only added to the anticipation. A server immediately furnished him with a glass of 2009 Cabernet; it looked thimble-sized in the hands of the 7-foot-6 former Houston Rockets center and eight-time NBA All-Star. Fans rushed him, craning their cameras for a shot of his towering visage, and Yao soon retreated behind the bar, using the quartz counter as a screen from the crowd. Leaning over to greet his investors, he knocked his head on a chandelier festooned with a dozen bottles of wine. He smiled, and soon was humbly deflecting praise for the vintages he’d helped mastermind.

For retiring athletes and aging celebrities, a vanity wine label is often a misguided second act. Real Housewife Brandi Glanville’s Chardonnay, Emilio Estevez’s Viognier, ex-NFL coach Mike Ditka’s Cabernet Sauvignon—they’ve all been dreadful. “A formula for mediocrity,” wrote the dean of American wine criticism, Robert Parker. So it came as a surprise when Parker gave Yao Family Wines excellent reviews, calling his Cabernets “brilliant” and his reserve bottles as good as “just about anything made in Napa.”

Yao launched the project just after his retirement, in 2011, with 40 acres of vineyards in the hills of Napa Valley. Last year, the winery raised $3 million via Crowdfunder (Kickstarter for the MBA set; the minimum donation was $5,000). In addition to the Napa tasting room, Yao plans to also open one in his native Shanghai, where he’s lived since his retirement.

In China, the culture of winemaking is growing rapidly. The nation is now the world’s leading consumer of red wine, with nearly 2 billion bottles sold annually—a number that has more than doubled in the last five years. In a pitch to potential investors, Yao’s team pointed out, “No USA winery has meaningful market share” in China. “No one except Gallo is trying to get any.” Depending on how overserved you were in college, you may recognize Ernest & Julio Gallo as the maker of Carlo Rossi jug wine; Gallo exports 900,000 cases of Carlo Rossi to China each year, making it the dominant American winemaker there.

By comparison, Yao Family Wines currently ships 5,000 cases to China per year. In an effort to gain a foothold in the export market, the winery is pairing its original $100 Cabernet Sauvignon and $225 Cabernet Sauvignon reserve with more affordable bottles; Yao now offers a Zinfandel and a red blend—both grown in Lodi, California—for $20 each.

Tom Hinde, the president of the label, is already planning for September’s harvest, when he and Yao will finish the base blends from their 2014 grapes and bottle their Cabernets before turning to the vineyards themselves, which could become more geographically diverse soon. “We might make a wine in Chile,” he says. “We might make a wine in China or Italy.”

Wherever the business goes next, it’s clear where Yao first drew his winemaking inspiration: Houston Rockets teammate Dikembe Mutombo, who introduced him to Zinfandel and Cabernet Sauvignon at a Houston steakhouse after a playoff win a decade ago. And what was the vintage that first piqued his interest? “You know, there were many dinners,” Yao says. “And it was much more than any one bottle.”[/rquoter]

http://www.unitedmags.com/yao-ming-is-napas-newest-player

 

just because of the scale of the (potential) market, 12% is a significant amount in real consumption terms.

 

their wines are not cheap!

 

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Roses are red,<br>Violets are blue,<br>Wine.<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/ThursdayThoughts?src=hash">#ThursdayThoughts</a></p>&mdash; Yao Family Wines (@YaoFamilyWines) <a href="https://twitter.com/YaoFamilyWines/status/748519363649495040">June 30, 2016</a></blockquote>
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr"><a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/FridayFeeling?src=hash">#FridayFeeling</a> Knowing Cabernet and three days off is about to happen <a href="https://t.co/yqd1ilotvF">pic.twitter.com/yqd1ilotvF</a></p>&mdash; Yao Family Wines (@YaoFamilyWines) <a href="https://twitter.com/YaoFamilyWines/status/748975094806958080">July 1, 2016</a></blockquote>
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