Wine growers on a mission of good taste

Zhang Yanli, owner of the Fei Tswei Winery, located on the southern tip of the Helan Mountain range, tasted Helan Qingxue's wine in 2012 in Hong Kong and decided to set up a winery in Ningxia.

Before that, she and her husband were offered a mature winery in France with an ancient castle. After visiting France and Ningxia, Zhang Yanli decided to build a new vineyard in Ningxia.

"The French winery was very mature; we just had to buy it and follow its recipe. The land in Ningxia was just an empty plot with nothing on it, but I could paint what I wanted on it. It would be my palette. I made the right decision," recalls Zhang Yanli.

The 93-hectare winery is located between a reservoir and the mountains. Flowers and carefully trimmed trees surround the red building, bordering a large garden.

Zhang Yanli loves to try different grape varieties on the soil and waits year after year for the fruit. Mixed with different fermentation technologies, the varieties that emerge are just like "giving birth to babies", she says.

"After picking and processing the grapes, and putting the wine into oak barrels, we have to wait for a whole year to sample the final result. Different wines have their own characteristics, like babies. The process is very interesting," she says.

The owner actively promotes her wine in Hong Kong and thus her winery attracts many visitors from there. Zhang Yanli's dream is like all the other vintners — to one day make wine in Ningxia that drinkers around the world know and admire.

"Vineyards in the region are very young. We need time to mature, and I firmly believe that, together, we will make it one day," she says.

Just an hour's drive away from Fei Tswei Winery, a wine resort town, Dulaan, is under construction. With hotels, theaters and other forms of entertainment, the town is planned to open in July next year. The hope is that it will attract more than 100,000 high-end tourists every year.

The area around Helan Mountains, thanks to the efforts by the people tending vineyards or specializing in running wineries, may one day be viewed, in wine terms, as a place of good taste.

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