Producing the first bottle of dry red wine in China
Utilizing Carbernet Gernischet as the main vinification material, Changyu successfully developed a kind of wine with brand new taste in 1931. Mr. Xu Wangzhi, the then General Manager of Changyu, named it “Cabernet,” with the spring of inspiration from the business philosophy of “Combining Chinese and western cultures, and embracing everything that is useful” (note: One should be as inclusive as the ocean, which is vast because it admits hundreds of rivers.), which was put forward by Mr. Chang Bishi, the founder of Changyu.
In 1936, Changyu started to apply for registering Cabernet as a trademark. Upon approval by the Trademark Bureau under the Ministry of Industry of the Republic of China (ROC) at that time, the trademark of Cabernet was officially registered and granted No. 33470 Registration Certificate. This document is currently kept in the Second Historical Archives of China. As the earliest dry red wine made in China, Changyu Cabernet was first described in an article of the Brewing Journal published in 1939, with a title of “Analysis on Changyu Wine and Comparison with Foreign Wines.” From the statistics of the article, it can be concluded that the various indicators of Changyu Cabernet back then have reached or even exceed the current national standards stipulated for high-quality dry red wines. This shows that Changyu solved the technical difficulties of dry red wine at that time, and Changyu Cabernet is the earliest dry red wine made in China with a production history of over 80 years.