Chinese pioneers
You may not have heard of it, but Ningxia is being hailed as China’s hottest region for the production of quality wines. Jane Anson travels to the wild stretches of the Great Wall to meet the up-and-coming producers who are leading the way
Ningxia is being hailed as the country’s top region for quality wine. Jane Anson meets the producers leading the way
ThE GREAT WAll of China passes through Ningxia as it skirts Inner Mongolia and the Gobi Desert. We hiked along a section of it with our guide Kiki on a bright but cold sunny day last October. First built over 2,000 years ago to defend the Qin, han, Sui and Ming dynasties from Mongolian attacks, some of the oldest remaining sections are seen here, at the Sanguankou pass through the helan Mountains, where Genghis Khan first entered China in 1209. This is the wild Great Wall, eroded from the desert winds and devoid of tourists excepting the three of us.
We were able to stop here because the pass sits just a short drive away from the Ningxia Wine Route, a series of roads that skirt the foothills of the helan Mountains and join together almost 100 wineries. If we’d been here 15 years ago, this would still have been desert, with sandstorms an ongoing battle for the
small villages that dot the area. Today it still feels like wild country, at an altitude of 1,000m and with many sections still under construction, but regularly spaced among the sparse landscape are vast Chinese-style fortresses, Loire-style chateaux and marble castles with moats and footbridges that are surrounded by either newly planted vines or land ready for planting.
If you’re trying to keep up with what’s happening in the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, you had better not leave it too long between visits. The very first winery opened here in 1985, but the first real wave of estates came over a decade later. None of the properties along the Ningxia Wine Route date back further than 1997 and the vast majority were built less than five years ago.
It’s hard to get an accurate picture of what is going on, at least partly because things are changing so fast, but figures from the Ningxia Bureau of Grape Industry Development show that plantings of wine grapes in Ningxia increased from 2,660ha in 2004 to 39,300ha in 2014. The stated aim is for this to become 67,000ha by 2020 (1 million mu in local measurements) with double the number of existing wineries. Creating any size of wine region from scratch at the edge of the Gobi desert is not a job for the unimaginative or easily defeated. To take it to 67,000ha – more than twice the size of Burgundy – in little more than two decades (despite winter temperatures that regularly drop to a vinekilling -25°C) is pretty staggering.
Starting out
It has taken, as is so often the case in China, clear government directives and support. Looking to move to a high-value agricultural crop, the local government initially bulldozed sand dunes and laid irrigation channels to make way for the vines, planting swathes of forest as an extra windbreak.
They then granted 70-year vineyard licences to the wineries, offered subsidies for buying vines and equipment, as well as for attending international trade fairs, and ensured that the focus from the beginning was on a chateau strategy – meaning wineries growing their own grapes, restricting yields and bottling on site rather than buying in grapes or bulk wine from other regions or countries, as has been common in much of the recent history of Chinese wine. In theory, if
Lenz Moser, pictured right ‘The challenge is to ensure this breakneck speed of development is sustainable’
wines have Ningxia on the label all grapes have to be from there, an aim that is helped, as viticulturist Dr Richard Smart points out, by the region’s remoteness in China’s northwest territory, which hinders intraregional transport.
Next up was education in viticultural techniques. In 2011 the Ningxia University Wine College opened and today has 800 students in the shape of 650 undergraduates and 150 postgraduates, learning everything from viticulture to wine marketing and sales under teachers such as microbiologist Dr Gang Jin and oenologist Wen Ma, who did her post-doctorate studies in Bordeaux. Overseas winemakers have been attracted through competitions to make the best local wine with over US$100,000 (�70,000) on offer in prize money, with several of them staying on after the competition ended.
International consultants also help, although to be really useful they need to visit regularly and concentrate on teaching basic winery skills, rather than just flying in for the winemaking itself. Lenz Moser is at Château Changyu-Moser XV, Ho-Lan Soul has the Bordeaux oenologist Stéphane Toutoundji, Château Yunmo has opted for Michel Rolland, while Smart is at Chateau Mihope, introducing trellising techniques to help refine the local practice of burying the vines over the winter months to help them survive the cold (‘vertical trellising doesn’t work,’ he says, preferring instead to angle the vines during the whole year so that burying puts less strain on them).
There are, equally, many geographic positives to the location, which offers extremely dry summers, over 3,000 sunshine hours annually and cold winters that mean organic winemaking is easier than in many other regions. The incidence of rot and other diseases is extremely low, so herbicide use is almost non-existent – although vine-trunk disease has been an issue in the past. Almost all vineyard work is done by hand (cheap labour helps, of course) and in 2013 the Ningxia Helan Mountain East Wine Region Conservation Regulations were passed, providing legal protection to the sustainable development of the region’s wine industry.
Exploring potential
The success of all this can be seen through the number of national and international giants present here, including COFCO, Changyu, LVMH’s Chandon and Pernod Ricard (at first French-Chinese joint venture but now entirely independent). But it’s the high number of boutique wineries such as Silver Heights and Chateau Helan Qingxue that have focused
international attention on the region, and reinforced the image of quality potential. Cabernet Sauvignon is the main grape at over 70% of total plantings, although there are some interesting experimentations with Marselan, and the wines are racking up an impressive number of international awards.
‘It’s an exciting but challenging place to be,’ says Moser, who has overseen a huge investment programme at Château ChangyuMoser XV and has been rewarded with seeing his family name added to the winery. ‘The challenge is to ensure this breakneck speed of development is sustainable, and to keep raising the basic level of wine knowledge.’
I saw a few signs of what Moser means. For example, I heard almost no talk of working the soils while I was there – even though there’s no doubt that these former desert sands could do with improved microbial structure. Tasting shows that there needs to be better natural balance in the vineyard to reduce the need for acidification or other techniques in the cellar. The four main issues I found were TCA in corks, premature ageing in young wines, spiky acidity levels and issues with barrel management. But I also tasted many excellent wines made by committed winemakers that showed lush fruits and excellent potential.
Brave new world
‘The impact of the winemaker remains crucial,’ Smart tells me, when we discuss his impressions of Ningxia, formed during six years of regularly working there. ‘It can be frustrating as there is very little exchange between wineries, which means a lack of community awareness around specific viticultural and cellar issues. They need to be open to learning from mistakes, and for that you need contact not just with outside influences, but with others in your region.’
‘But there is clear potential for quality wine if vineyards are well managed, and I see similarities with the free-draining soils of regions such as Hawke’s Bay,’ continues Smart. ‘Right now the investment is focused on fancy buildings and buying the best equipment, while vineyard investment is too low down the list, but that’s changing. China paradoxically is the New World of winemaking, despite the fact that it was one of first places to make wine. Inevitably it’s a work in progress,’ he says.
What are his hopes for the future? ‘I’d like to see more experimentation with grapes beyond Cabernet Sauvignon, as there are lots of native varieties that might be a route for the future.’ He adds that some German grapes have their ancestry in China, though not many producers are currently developing those.
‘Marselan could well be the variety that China embraces as its own, particularly as no one else has grabbed it yet, and I’ve already seen some excellent examples from Ningxia,’ adds Smart. ‘There is also not yet a cultural appreciation of white wine, but the climate shows great potential for both sparkling and still whites from premium varieties such as Chardonnay.’
What’s certain is that the will and ambition are there. One thing, above all, convinced me of the true potential for success in Ningxia. It came on the last night of my visit, as we had supper with the local government officials who were involved in the winemaking initiative. I asked Hao Linhai, the now-retired chairman of the International Federation of Vine and Wine of Helan Mountain’s East Foothill, what he believes should happen over the next 10 years. His reply was: to slow down.
‘I believe our success has come from the fact that our soils have been used from the beginning not for bulk but quality wine. We need to resist the temptation to go too fast. We all have a part to play in regulating growth and ensuring we keep this focus on quality.’