Imported wine is expensive in Beijing. The taxes and duties on most incoming bottles are around 48 percent and the cost is ultimately borne by consumers. Even worse, if you buy your wine at a restaurant or bar, rather than a retail outlet, those taxes and duties are magnified by bottle mark-ups that typically range from 200 to 350 percent. Then there are the costs companies face due to shipping wine here or needing staff to handle the import process or the inefficiencies, due to economy of scale, of the country’s relatively small wine market. This might all sound like we have to pay through the nose before we even get to a sniff of wine. But there are ways to get more pop for your renminbi, whether you are the type that wants to learn about wine, focus on volume, or both.

Tip # 1 – Do a low-cost home tasting

Simply go to Jenny Lou’s, pick up four or five bottles that retail for less than RMB / 100 each, and invite a half-dozen friends to your home. These gatherings work well if you first try the wines “blind”, that is, wrap the bottles and get everyone’s opinion before revealing the labels. I know people who turn up their noses and question if there are any good wines for less than RMB  100 in Beijing. The answer: yes. They might not ooze complexity or be something to cellar for 20 years but there are plenty of pleasant and inexpensive wines. A home tasting will allow you to try a handful of them for several hundred renminbi. Here are a few themes.You can use for a tasting:

• Pick five wines, each made with a different grape, to see how they compare and contrast. For white wines, you could try a bottle each of Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, Riesling, Albarino and Pinot Grigio.
• Pick a grape and find wines from several countries that use it. For Sauvignon Blanc, you could try a bottle each from Chile, South Africa, Australia, France and, if you want to pay a bit more, New Zealand. You can do similar tastings with Cabernet Sauvignon, Chardonnay, Merlot and other wines.
• Pick grapes associated with a particular country. A fun foursome would be a Malbec from Argentina, a Nero d’Avola from Italy, a Pinotage from South Africa and a Zinfindel from the United States.

Tip # 2 – Attend a wine dinner

The attraction of weekend brunches at five-star hotels is obvious to anyone who enjoys Champagne. Such meals typically cost about RMB/400 and entitle you to three or four hours to stuff your face with everything from crab legs to curry and then wash it down with bubbly. Good value when you consider most of the Champagnes used in these hotels retail for around the same price.

A similar logic applies to dinners organized by wine distributors. These tend to cost from RMB 400 to 800, are held in five-star hotels or top restaurants, and start with a Champagne reception before moving on to a four- or five-course meal paired with wines. Even better, on top of some tasty food, the wines tend to better ones from whatever winery is being featured. And the wine maker is often on hand to provide background information, answer questions, and maybe crack open an extra bottle.

One of the best I have attended was an ASC dinner that included a Bollinger Champagne reception, wines from Napa bigwigs Shaeffer and Phelps poured side by side, and an excellent meal in China World Hotel. It cost RMB 800 and was worth every kuai.

In fact, Beijing ranks among the top cities for such dinners, since most wineries crave more access in China and because it is still possible for the average consumer to attend rather than to have only people from a select VIP list. Enjoy this while it lasts.

Tip # 3 – Go to a portfolio tasting

The high price of wine in Beijing restaurants and bars can inspire a tendency toward “old reliables”. After all, if you are going to plunk down a fistful of bills, a safe choice is something you have tried and liked. That makes it important to try, and hopefully like, as many wines as possible.

One way to do this is by attending portfolio tastings, which essentially see a wine distributor offer a good chunk of its wines – say 100 – for consumers to sample for a small fee. A good example is Torres’ annual Taste of the Nations. It features 150 wines, from 13 countries many priced from RMB 300 to RMB 600,. The fee: RMB 238. This year included a Uruguayan wine. Would I have ordered this from a restaurant before going to Taste of the Nations? Almost certainly not. Would I now, having liked the two reserve wines I tried? Possibly.

Also good are portfolio tastings with “on trade” distributors – that is companies who focus sales on restaurants, bars and hotels, rather than retail outlets – such as The Wine Republic. The last one cost RMB 100 and featured 50 wines.  Over the years, distributors as varied as Aussino, ASC, Gelipu and Palatte Vino have done such tastings in Beijing. If that isn’t enough, check out the annual Hilton Food and Wine Experience on November 13 when more than a dozen distributors will offer samples.

Home parties, wine dinners and portfolio tastings hardly exhausts the opportunities for wine value in Beijing. There are seasonal sales, happy hours, and free tastings – including the twice-yearly Carrefour wine fairs – among other events. But for those seeking to stretch their wine dollar, and to try the vast array wines available in the city, they are a good start.

Follow Jim Boyce on his wine blog Grape Wall of China (www.grapewallofchina.com) and nightlife blog Beijing Boyce (www.beijingboyce.com). You can also find him on twitter and weibo (twitter.com/beijingboyce), Weibo (t.sina.com.cn/1834215773), and Facebook.