China The New Wine Frontier: a wine lover’s photographic journey.

The straight rows of vineyards can be seen in remote Beng village in Yunnan Province near the border with Tibet. This is just one of the vineyards visited in my China The New Wine Frontier book and presentations.

China is now the world's largest market for red wine, having increased more than 136% since 2008. In France, the second largest consumer of reds, it has declined by 18%. Small wonder that Chinese wineries are springing up like Oregon mushrooms to meet the tremendous demand in their own backyard.

Yet most people outside of the Land of the Dragon have no idea about the country’s booming wine industry, or that the country’s wine history actually dates back at least 9000 years. 

Marco Polo rated the wine in far west Xinjiang, China during his Silk Road journeys, even suggesting a wine mixture for mad dog bites.

With a cow-powered plow, these farmers are pulling up the peanuts grown between rows of Cabernet Sauvignon in a Tinjian Province vineyard.

Join Janis Miglavs for a photographer’s and adventurist’s visual journey through parts of China and an incredible wine scene seen by few outsiders.  Get a behind-the-scenes peek at the booming industry. See the architecture, the vineyards, the people and the wine. 
 

This is how Chinese drink wine. They call it ganbei.

Along the way learn secrets like how to survive drinking wine with local Chinese during the common practice of ganbei.

The general manager at Chateau Changyu Baron Balboa in Shihezi, Xinjiang, holds up a copy of my China The New Wine Frontier book opened to a page showing another Changyu winery, Chateau Changyu AFIP Global.

Since it is only available in China at this time, these presentations are a rare chance to buy China The New Wine Frontier book, the definitive work on Chinese wineries written and photographed by Miglavs.

"Best in the World" award for book on Chinese Wineries.

--> At the international Cookbook Fair in Beijing, China, Janis Miglavs—that's me—received the “Best in the World” award for my most recent book China: The New Wine Frontier.

But the best part of getting the award: the Chinese publisher flew me from Sherwood, Oregon, to Beijing, China, in business class.  

See this big grin on my face, that’s because this was the first publisher to ever fly me anywhere, let alone China, and business class.  You  should see all the different kinds of wine Air Canada offers on Business Class.

For those who couldn't guess, that's me on the far right trying to tell the photographer how to use my camera. I also had to give a 30 second speech. And for those who have never seen me dressed up, I brought an appropriate jacket, but it was too darn hot in Beijing.

After all the people left, the publisher made me sign a stack of books even after I told them that would decrease the value of the 2.2 kilogram tome. It just dawned on me that I should have signed in Chinese characters instead of Latvian.

Gourmand Magazine praises my China Wine book

Which is the best China Winery book cover?

Which cover do you like best for the China Winery book I just finished writing last Wednesday?

This is the cover I sent as a suggestion.

The covers below are ones the Chinese designer submitted.

Chinese Designer Cover #1

Chinese Designer Cover #2

Chinese Designer Cover #3

Getting to the CiZhong Vineyard

Working on the Yunnan section of my Chinese Winery book today.

It took us almost three days along this road to get to Cizhong Church and vineyard that I wanted to include in the ShangriLa winery shoot. The church was originally built by French missionaries in 1867. The missionaries are buried in the nearby cemetery.

Chinese vineyard near the Glaciers

Here I am editing photographs of the vineyards in Yunnan Province near Tibet for the Chinese Winery book.

Check out the glaciers, part of the Mingyong Glacier Park, towering above the vineyard at Minyong village (also written Mingjin) at the entrance to the Park near LanCang (also called Lantsang, Lansang and Mekong) River, in the Heng Duan (Hengduan) Mountain Range, Yunnan Province, China, Asia.

Did you see the person at the edge of the lower vineyard?

Xinjiang Province in one photo

This photograph sums up the Xinjiang Province for me: grapes, nuclear power, lots of construction and incredible landscape.

Premium Cabernet Sauvignon vineyard where Citic Guoan Winery (known as Citic Guoan Wine Sales Co., LTD and formerly Suntime International Wine Company) gets grapes, with a nuclear power plant and Bogda Peak in the Tian Shan Mountain range, Fukang, Xinjian Province, China, Asia.

Research for my China Winery Book

OK, not all research is hard work. This is me checking out the social interaction norms at Chateau Changyu AFIP Global, the place I call the Disneyland of Chinese Wineries. The gentleman on my right, your left, is actually an agricultural professor. The gentleman on my left, well, I can't remember his name or why he was there. Should have written it down before we did this gambei—Chinese for bottoms up.

Why is Bigger Better in China?

In 1985, Hong Kong-based British wine merchant Michael Parry started building Chateau Huadong Parry just outside of Qingdao, Shandong Province, China. Today, general manager Liu Hong Mei says that the chateau is too small by Chinese standards. She says Bigger is Better in China.

Wait until you read in the Chinese Winery book I'm writing about how Parry mistakenly named his winery.

Why is bigger better in China? What do you think about winery size?

So Where is this Scottish Castle Located?

This is Treaty Port, a Scottish island on China's Shandong peninsula. I've just finished the writing of this winery for the Chinese Winery book I'm doing for a Chinese publisher. Lots of Chinese in the previous sentence.