Just before Brisbane-based Cantonese restaurant Central opened its doors for the first time in October, the Chinese-made wine that head chef Benny Lam and sommelier Peter Marchant were eager to have on the menu was held up in customs.

But after some quick phone calls, Chinese wine label Xiao Pu (“Little Garden”), run by Ian Dai, managed to send two dozen bottles produced from the plains of Ningxia, in China’s central north, from Hong Kong to Queensland via air freight at the last minute.

Fanda Group wine director Peter Marchant says Chinese-made wines offer something a little different for drinkers. Dan Peled

“We really wanted to have that Chinese wine available for our first dinner sitting, and that episode showed they were serious about working with us,” Mr Marchant told The Australian Financial Review.

“We are leaning strongly into the Cantonese-influenced cuisine vibe at Central and, as the old European saying goes, ‘If it grows together, it goes together’. We’re trying to show off that part of the world, which means showing off the wine as well as food.”

Mr Dai, a founding member of the Young Generation China Wine group, a collective of around 20 next-gen producers who are reinventing the image of Chinese wine, began exporting wines to Australia, his first overseas market, a month before Central opened.

China’s domestic winemaking industry then took another major step in December when Penfolds owner Treasury Wine Estates acquired the Stone & Moon winery in north-eastern China for $27.5 million, spreading its bets that Chinese wine will eventually be held in the same regard as the world’s prestige wine-growing regions.

Central, an 80-seater underground dumpling restaurant and bar run by Fanda Group – the same team behind Southside in Brisbane and Rick Shores on the Gold Coast – has five Chinese-made wines on its menu. These include a cabernet gernischt and a chardonnay from Xige Estate, founded in 2017, as well as a blend and a chardonnay from Xiao Pu.

Punters can try a flight of all four for $55, or try them individually by the glass and bottle.

Ian Dai says there is a limit in the Chinese domestic market for unconventional wines. “That is why, for me, export is very important.” Graeme Kennedy

Mr Marchant says interest has primarily come from wine devotees over casual drinkers, regardless of whether they have a Chinese background. “The more you get into wine, you more you want to explore and try new things,” he said. “Chinese wine is a curio for them.”

In Adelaide, Hellbound Wine Bar owner Mark Reginato last year showcased a half dozen bottles of cabernet sauvignon from Ningxia winery Legacy Peak for $88. “It offered something different and didn’t look out of place at all. People loved it,” he said.

Melbourne-based Gimlet, which is run by Andrew McConnell and last year won Australia’s Wine List of the Year Award, got the first Chinese-made drop on its extensive menu over summer – a pinot noir by Xiao Pu made in Gansu province, which neighbours Ningxia.

Listed in Mandarin on the wine list and available by the glass or bottle at Gimlet, head sommelier Anthony Pieri describes the low sulphur, high acidity option as “Chinese wine with a French accent”.

“It is light, fresh, and responds well to a chill, making it perfect for summer,” he said. “I wanted something that would give a nod to our Chinese guests, as well as allowing other drinkers to explore a new side of China.”

Next up, Mr Pieri plans to get a chardonnay from Silver Heights, which is also based in Ningxia, but was founded by Lin Gao and his daughter Emma Gao in 2007, making it more commercially established than Xiao Pu and Xige Estate.

The smaller-scale, new independent producers in the Young Generation China Wine group cover almost all possible contemporary styles, including funky “pet nats”.

It marks a radical departure from mainstream Chinese wine production, which, for the past decade or more, has consisted of lots of huge new plantings, mostly of cabernet sauvignon, by state-owned wine companies such as Great Wall, or ambitious, high-priced Bordeaux-inspired wines from international companies including Mo?t Hennessy’s Ao Yun.

These types of wines are also available at high-end Australian venues including Crown Melbourne’s Cantonese restaurant Silks, which offers two cabernet sauvignon made by Great Wall in Hebei for $580 and $680. Meanwhile, Crown Sydney’s modern Australian eatery Woodcuts serves a 2015 bottle of Ao Yun red for $1520.