In China's far-west Xinjiang desert, not far from where Marco Polo traveled the Silk Road, sits a new wine oasis. It's called Chateau Baron Balboa. Changyu, China's largest winery, built it to provide the visitor a Disneyland-like "wine experience" in the dusty desert.
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| The road to Changyu's wine oasis, Chateau Baron Balboa, in the desert of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, China. |
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| Changyu, China's largest winery, built Chateau Baron Balboa wine oasis to attract visitors. The marketing idea is to provide a Disney-like "wine experience," then convert them into wine consumers. |
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| Professional wedding photographers are lined up two or three deep at key locations to take snaps of newly weds. Changyu's Chateau Baron Balboa, in the desert of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, China. |
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| Changyu Chateau Baron Balboa near Shihezi, Xinjiang, is designed to be a Disney-like tourist destination under the shell of a European-style chateau. China's largest winery, Changyu,wants the visitor to experience wine culture at all of its four Sino-based chateaux, and then, of course, buy more wine. In the near future, Changyu plans to build at least two more chateaux, plus a whole wine city, which by itself will reportedly cost about 6 billion yuan (about US $1billion), near its headquarters in Yantai, Shandong Province. |
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| Changyu's Chateau Baron Balboa, in the desert of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, China. |
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| Changyu's Chateau Baron Balboa, in the desert of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, China. |
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| Workers trim Cabernet sauvignon vines by hand at Changyu's Chateau Baron Balboa, in the desert of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, China. |
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| General Manager and Winemaker of Changyu Chateau Baron Balboa in Xinjiang, Hao Dongshu, holds a copy of my book China the New Wine Frontier to the chapter on sister winery, Chateau Changyu AFIP Global near Beijing. These are two of Changyu's current chateaux. |
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| Yes, they do actually make wine at Changyu Chateau Baron Balboa, Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, China. |
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| A specially-designed-for-the-tourist-walkway totally encased in glass and Greek-style columns, showcases the Chinese made bottling line on the left and a cellar housing French-oak barrels on the right. Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, China. |
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| To the Chinese, Europe, especially France, means good wine. So Changyu hopes to set a "wine experience" mood for the visitors. |
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| Somehow, even this bronze rock star musician in the Chateau garden area must be part of the "wine experience" Changyu offers visitors. |
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| When I found this dog-headed photographer statue, I knew that this had to be the right place to take a great photograph. |
All images © Janis Miglavs 2015
janis@jmiglavs.com
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