Fongyee Walker

Fongyee Walker is the co-founder, with Edward Ragg, of Dragon Phoenix Wine Consulting, Beijing’s first and fully independent wine consulting and education service (est. 2007). She is the first and only Master of Wine resident in Mainland China. Having begun to study wine at Cambridge University whilst reading for a Ph.D. in Classical Chinese, Walker was captain of the Cambridge University Blind Wine Tasting Team and, in 2004, led the Cambridge team to victory, as well as winning ‘Best Blind Taster’ in the Oxford-Cambridge wine tasting match. In the UK, she fell in love with German wine.

She is now a specialist wine educator and consultant (in English and Mandarin), as well as a WSET Certified Wine Educator. Under her direction, Dragon Phoenix has become Mainland China’s most successful WSET provider by results and is the only provider teaching the full WSET Level 4 Diploma. Fongyee has also delivered special trade-targeted wine courses in Mandarin for different organisations, including Wines of Germany.

As a wine judge, Fongyee has judged at numerous international wine competitions and is the group leader for German wine at Wine100. Fongyee has also written articles for Decanter Magazine, The World of Fine Wine, Drink Magazine (Shanghai), The Beijinger, CaijingRibao, Wine Review and Fine Wine & Liquor (China) and acts as a blind-tasting panellist for RVF China and Wine in China, among other Chinese wine magazines. She is also currently a columnist for Decanter China, writing about educational issues. In 2015, she became a wine consultant to Air New Zealand. She was also a significant contributor to the award-winning wine documentary film Red Obsession, both with shooting and in front of the camera, and has appeared as a featured commentator on Chinese Wine on CNN.