Stir-fry staple banned from foodstore shelves

By SCOTT MacLEOD

Chinese chefs are nursing their last bottles of cooking wine as a crackdown by authorities forces merchants to pull it from their shelves.

The rice-based wine holds even greater status in Asian kitchens than tomato sauce at Kiwi barbecues.

But stores selling the product under the same law that lets supermarkets sell wine can no longer do so because of a ruling that has been branded racist.

The Liquor Licensing Authority has found that many Chinese cooking wines have more alcohol than the 15 per cent limit for supermarkets.

It also questions whether rice wine is a "fruit wine" that supermarkets can sell.

Rice wine, which usually costs between $4 and $35 a bottle, can have an alcohol strength anywhere between 15 per cent and 54 per cent.

Chinese Aucklander Claudia Mitchell, who cooks Asian meals five times a week, said the wine was at "the very core of Asian society".

It had been an ingredient in Chinese cuisine for thousands of years, and banning it smacked of racism.

It tasted awful by itself and "nobody with half a brain would drink the stuff".

But council staff said they were merely following the law.

The ban's roots can be traced back to October, when Constable Nigel Nelson of Ponsonby police was told the Tai Ping store in Dominion Rd was selling liquor without a licence.

He also found a copy of the Chinese Express in which Kwang Tung rice wine was advertised for $1.99.

Mr Nelson wandered into Tai Ping's Mt Roskill branch and found rice wine with 16.8 per cent alcohol.

The discovery led to a hearing before the authority, which found the ingredients of many Asian cooking wines - such as salt, rice and large amounts of alcohol - meant they could not be sold by supermarkets.

A Tai Ping director, Michael Chan, said the wine had been sold here for 30 years and he had never heard of people getting drunk or abusive on it.

"It isn't for drinking, it's for cooking," he said yesterday. "Any Chinese household has cooking wines - it's used in 90 per cent of Oriental dishes with steak and beef."

Bottleshops have yet to plug the gap in the market.

No rice wine was available at liquor stores visited by the Herald yesterday.