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A 'wine revolution' far from Bordeaux

Harvesting bunches of plump grapes and sorting them ready for wine-making -- it may look like France or Spain but its far from it.

A new up and coming location on a sub-tropical island; Taiwan.

Chen Chien-hao is not just making a nice drop to enjoy for himself. . he's on a bigger mission, what he calls the Taiwan wine "revolution."

"In Taiwan, the wine making (culture) has been lost. That's why we are trying to give new life to Taiwan's wine culture. I'm initiating a revolution called 'Taiwan wine spirit renaissance'.

Taiwan's recently become known for an award-winning whisky, Kavalan, and is famed for the food scene in its bustling night markets, but it's not on most wine connesieurs' radar.

Until 2002, alcohol production was a government monopoly that kept out private firms.

And the wine was only supplied for the domestic market.

But now, they're armed with new equipment and honed their technique and it's paying off.

Chen took home gold medals at a prestigious wine competition in Paris this year, but he still says the stakes are high to compete on the world stage.

"Of course I'm worried about no one from overseas will buy my wine. But I can only slowly try to do it. That's why I always wanted to do use the international competitions to understand (the market)."

Currently they produce just 6,000 bottles every year of the award-winning wines, based on a Black Queen grape, first developed by Japanese scientists, but it doesn't come cheap, priced at about $100 per bottle.