Yang Xiao:A Collector of Mini Wine Bottles

Most Chinese collectors have treasures of paintings and calligraphic works. yang xiao, a veteran television journalist, however, stands out with his very rare collection of miniature wine bottles.

The hobby started during the Spring Festival days in 1983. He was staying at Jinjiang Hotel, Shanghai to see off his younger sister and two nephews to France. While wandering in the shopping arcade at the hotel, Yang Xiao spotted two bottles of foreign wine. The cute bottles were as small as one’s thumb. Without hesitation, Yang bought the two bottles. The shop assistant commented Yang was lucky because the small bottles of wine had been just made available. Yang asked why. It turned out that most such miniature bottles of wine were manufactured as samples or promotional attractions for standard bottles of wine. According to the assistant, these miniature bottles of wine were art, commercial promotion, and collector’s items.

The intention to build up such a collection germinated in the heart of Yang Xiao. But the 1980s was a tough time for such a luxurious hobby in China: domestic wineries did not care for offering miniature bottles of wine and the imported ones were nowhere to be found in shops. Yang’s collection grew to a few dozens at a painstakingly slow rate over a period of eight years. His wife complained about the uselessness of the hobby. And it was very expensive. A single bottle of wine could cost a big fortune. What is more, the trouble and cost for acquiring a bottle of wine makes it unthinkable to drink the wine that come together with the bottles. And it usually takes much trouble to keep the bottles clean. So it is not wrong to state that Yang’s is a collection of wines.

It was not until the early 1990s when foreign wines became a common sight in China’s shopping malls that miniature bottles of foreign wine began to appear in growing numbers. Yang Xiao was able to add more additions to his collection. His collection grew rapidly. In order to have money to buy, he had long since quit drinking and smoking. When the collection grew to over 100 bottles, his wife became aware that it was a huge pleasure to view the display of these bottles on a shelf. Visiting friends admired the collection too. When the Yangs bought a new apartment, they had eight wine display cabins built to cover three walls of their sitting room.

At the latest count in the fall of 2008, there were more than 1,000 bottles of wine, a huge collection of 25 years by the couple.

Different Sources

Whenever Yang Xiao visits a domestic city on business, he will comb local wine shops, shopping malls, and gift shops to see if he can add anything new to his collection, although his collection has almost all the miniature bottles of wine available on the mainland.

He has been abroad many times for making television programs. And he has visited his sister and brother in Europe twice. The visits gave him chances to go through some airport gift shops as well as bars in urban and rural areas. He knows that bars are not ideal places for trade, for miniature bottles of wine there are either not for sale or very expensive. Wine boutiques in Paris, Rome and Madrid are his targets where various wine in miniature bottles are available at affordable prices.

The most unforgettable experience in his wine hunt occurred when he was touring Terschelling, an island off the Netherlands. He ran into a shop that sold nothing but miniature bottles of wine. His eyes shone at the sight of hundreds of bottles on display. He bought nearly 100 pieces which were not yet in his collection. The shop owner was overjoyed and amazed that a Chinese spent thousands Euros buying her goods.

His relatives and friends are another key source. In the early summer of 2008, a nephew of Yang Xiao managed to buy 20 plus miniature bottles of wine in Rome. The wines were no security problem when he boarded the plane at Rome. But they became a big problem at Shanghai Pudong International Airport where the nephew was to board a plane for Wenzhou. The nephew had to empty the bottles in the toilet room. So only the empty bottles came to Yang’s collection. Nowadays, whenever Yang thinks of the empty bottles, his heart aches for the wine lost at the airport, for the empty bottles reduces the value of the collection. And whenever his relatives and friends are going to bring him wine from abroad, he asks them without failure to pack wine into unaccompanied luggage.

Sometimes Yang sees some bottles somewhere and if someone is unwilling to part with the cute bottles, Yang sweet-talks them out of their treasures. In the summer of 2007, he spotted four miniature bottles of wine designed in the shape of poker cards at a local wine shop. The owner of the shop had bought the bottles in Thailand to promote his wine business in Wenzhou. Yang did his persuasion so successfully that the boss finally agreed to sell Yang the bottles.

Knowledge

The busiest time in Yang’s career as a television journalist occurred when he worked as the director of the news department at a local television network. And as the director of documentaries department, he was in charge of producing a dozen of documentaries featuring the Wenzhou accomplishments in reform and economic takeoff. In these busy years, the best leisure moment he enjoyed was back at home looking over his collection or examining a bottle in his hand. It was enormous fun to put the collection together and it is great happiness to spend time with the collection at home.

These bottles of wine also serve as wells of knowledge for Yang Xiao. He says that these bottles made by foreign wineries present excellent design and sophisticated workmanship. The labels are finely printed and you need a magnifier to read all the fine prints. The design and text on a miniaturized label are a smaller but exact version of those you seen on standard bottles. It is obvious that no efforts are spared in manufacturing these tiny bottles. Regrettably Yang remarks that the same cannot be said of the Chinese winemakers, who began to produce such promotional samples only a few years ago. The Chinese winemakers seemingly do not bother to make finest bottles. More often that not, the workmanship is crude; colors often fade and texts become unreadable within a year. Yang comments that Chinese winemakers have a long way to go.

By putting the collection together and studying wines over the past 25 years, Yang has become a wine connoisseur. He is extremely knowledgeable about winemaking techniques and varieties and materials and designs.

His greatest regret is that he knows little foreign languages. He estimates that there are about 50-60 foreign languages on the labels on bottles in his collection. He plans to devote his time to the study of these labels after his retirement.