Introducing Lingering Clouds

I first met Jianjun ‘Johnny’ Liu on the outskirts of Yinchuan, Ningxia, late last year. An awkward, erratic technical engineer from Henan, he was working out of a nondescript, cluttered winery that left a lot to be desired, but the wine he had in tanks was a stimulating peek into a new expression of Chinese terroir. Johnny fell into the world of wine in 2012 working under Emma Gao and Thierry Courtade at Silver Heights. During his time he saw the winemaking process from vineyard management to fermentation, to bottling, and established Lingering Clouds in 2015. 

The sparkling wines from Lingering Clouds are all infused with high-quality Chinese tea leaves. 

Three different teas are used across three cuvées: Fuzhou nine-scented Jasmine tea leaves, where tea leaves are layered and blended to absorb the jasmine’s fragrance nine times; Low-yielding Longjing from Lion Peak Mountain harvested before the fifth Chinese solar term; and Oolong tea leaves from the Wuyi Mountains of Fuijan blended with from the Phoenix Mountains of Guangdong.

Working with a Chardonnay base, leaves are added during fermentation for a light, slow extraction preserving the tea’s aromas. According to Johnny, it took a few trials to get right, balancing the volume of tea with the infusion time, but the end product marries his love for tea and passion for wine, resulting in something full of character and unique to China.

Co-ferments are a key part of China’s winemaking history dating back to Silk Road days, and today’s wines carry a sense of place where tea and rice are the foundation of everyday life. Just like Silver Heights’ ‘Bloom’ Sparkling, Lingering Clouds draws from China’s ancient history and profound tea culture, resulting in a wine where an extraordinary idea just makes sense.