Wine tasting at Liuli China - Shanghai

I was summoned to a wine tasting event in Xin Tian Di. It was held at Liuli China, a private Liuli (Crystal) museum in Madang street – an absolute must see. The museum is built out of a private collection of 7 Taiwanese filmmakers who left the film industry to pursue the collective dream of cultural revival of Liuli (fortunately not Ang Lee and Hou Hsiao Hsien who recently produced the beautiful “Three Times” that I can not recommend enough) and built their dream brick by crystal glass brick (Liuli brick). Both the inner and the outer walls are built of 12,000 Liuli tiles, not one identical. Note the huge golden flower grown out of the up-right corner of the building. It is one of those places where you want visit in daytime and at night. The semi-transparent Liuli brick let through light and form a back-lit pink aurora at day times that turns gradually red at dusk. At the entrance there is a curved inner wall lit with multi-colour light with a subtle rainbow effect. There is a collection of Steven Weinberg, Antoine Leperlier and a few Eastern European artists with very different styles that wont necessarily appeal to every taste. What caught most of my attention was a set of Go game made of black and white Liuli balls dated in Ming dynasty.

Liuli, a neglected form of art in China, has a long history and was referred to by numerous Tang poets such as Bai Juyi. It was also mentioned in Buddhist scripture that states: “May the moment come when I attain enlightenment that the body, even the soul, becomes as crystal (Liuli). Pure, transparent, flawless”.

So comes the place for enlightenment. And so was I enlightened by French red wine in Shanghai.