In Shanghai for the China Wine Challenge last month, I was amazed to discover a shimmering array of bronze wine drinking vessels from over 2000 years BC and older on display at the Shanghai Museum. I had never really thought of China as a wine culture before, but the evidence of my own eyes clearly showed that the Chinese, albeit at the highest social levels and most likley for ceremonial purposes, had indeed been drinking wine long before the first Anglo-Saxon downed his first goblet of Roman-inspired plonk.

Organised by Ronald Brown, a Tokyo wine merchant, the China Wine Challenge is a wine competition that took place in Shanghai for the first time last year. Brown had been running the Japan Wine Challenge since 1998, but while Japan is a mature, steady wine market, China is precisely the opposite. Its rapidly expanding middle classes are taking to wine like Beijing ducks to pancake rolls, so it’s not surprising that wine producers around the world see China as the new promised land.

Joining the Challenge as a judge this year, I discovered that the Chinese have yet to get their heads round the idea of value. Château Lafite or an expensive French cru classé is a safe bet because it’s a known luxury brand. The cheap home-grown product is equally risk-free because there’s little to lose. The battleground is the middle market, the sort of affordable wines of quality in the £6 - £15 range that we take for granted in the UK but that the Chinese don’t yet take home to drink with their hairy crab. The ability to relate price to value is the real China wine challenge.

In the wheeler-dealer bustle of Shanghai, another Chinese paradox is evident: an apparent free market within a Communist framework. Nine in 10 bottles of wine consumed by the Chinese are made at China’s 600-odd wineries. Chinese wine is made in vast quantities and allowed to include foreign wine in the blend. While relatively cheap, most of it, with honourable exceptions such as Grace Winery, Helan Mountain and Silver Heights, is of mediocre quality.

A flat rate tax at 48% doesn’t help, and with land in the hands of the state, overseas investment in the Chinese wine industry is potentially hazardous. Nonetheless, the prize of a fast-growing market is encouraging the likes of Austria’s Lenz Moser, Spain’s Torres, the Swarovskis of Norton fame, Château Lafite, and Moët Hennessy, to suck it and see. No Chinese wine was awarded more than a bronze medal at last month’s China Wine Challenge but bronzes, as the Shanghai Museum attests, are an encouraging sign for China’s fast-growing industry.

The country’s sheer size and its varied mix of consumers as between conservative Beijing, sophisticated Shanghai and hubs such as Guangzhou, is mind-boggling. To a limited extent, China’s thirst for wine knowledge is being met by the likes of the China Wine Challenge, by events held by importers, by wine education of sommeliers and the trade, and a limited wine press. According to Ron Brown, who started doing business with China in 1984: ‘My guess is that there are some three to five million Chinese drinking wine today. With growing confidence and the right opportunities, there’s no reason why that shouldn’t grow to 50 million within five to 10 years’. If his crystal ball is accurate, China is indeed set to become the new promised land of wine.

Something For the Weekend 13 August

Under £6

2010 Fief Guérin Muscadet, Côtes de Grandlieu Sur Lie

From near the Atlantic, this is a bracingly refreshing, bone dry white, whose Granny Smith bite and tongue-tingling aftertaste make it the perfect match for seafood and summer picnics. £5.59, down from £6.99 until Tuesday, Waitrose.

Under a Tenner

Reuilly Cuvée Nathalie 2010, Nathalie Lafond

This is delicately fresh and herbal in aroma with a distinct blackcurrant leaf twist, while the taste is classically Loire Valle Sauvignon with a gooseberry fruitiness and flinty finish that could be Sancerre. £9.99, buy 2 = £8.99, Majestic.

Splash Out

2010 Sainsbury's Taste the Difference Pouilly-Fumé

Behind the delicately herbal-scented fragrance and mouthwateringly spritz-fresh prickle of this classic Loire Valley Sauvignon Blanc from André Figeat lies an attractive nettley richness and delicious weight of gooseberry fruit, etched with a flinty dry aftertaste. £12.49, Sainsbury's