Will China develop a wine culture? Will its wineries focus on quality enough to someday compete globally? It depends partly on China’s future path as a nation. Despite the country’s strides, China is walking a tightropes. Because so much of China’s past two centuries is colored with war and chaos, the current government prizes stability over all else. While the ruling Communist Party hopes free-market reforms will turn the nation into an economic superpower, it also fears that a free market could lead to the kind of chaos and malaise that hit Russia after the Soviet Union's collapse. So despite the economic boom, the government still controls large segments of the economy.

Modernity and tradition coexist in 21st-century China, from the world's fastest train to the peasants harvesting grapes at Bodegas Langes vineyards.
 
The Chinese people are restive. Unemployment is estimated at 9.8 percent in cities, but far higher in rural areas (one Chinese journal estimated 20 percent in 2003). Chinese farmers, stung by taxes, corrupt local bosses and land expropriations by developers routinely riot against local police. Last April, 20,000 peasants drove off more than 1,000 riot police in Zhejiang province.
 
Meanwhile, the xinguizu leading the rush to drink good wine are equally likely to grow dissatisfied with the government's tight control over their lives. China now has 94 million Internet users. Can the government maintain control as that number increases ?
 
If China can continue to thrive and grow, it has the potential to be a valuable wine market and wine producer. An example of how far it can go is just across the Shenzhen River in Hong Kong, a city that Shanghai is trying to emulate. A decade ago, wine appreciation in the then-British colony was in its infancy; now, there are wine stores galore, and its financial and political leaders are some of the world's biggest wine buyers, filling their cellars with thousands of bottles.
  
"It's like six generations have gone by in the five years we have been open," says M on the Bund's Gamaut as she looks at the lights of gleaming Shanghai. "Ten years ago, there were a couple of stuffy hotel steak restaurants, and when we opened, there was an attitude of 'nobody wants that fancy crap.' I said, 'That's not true -- this city is ready for an international standard of restaurant.' We were lucky with timing." Winegrowers hope the same is true for them.

Mark Graham is a freelance writer and photographer based in Hong Kong. Jeannie Cho Lee in Hong Kong and Mitch Frank in New York contributed to this report.