Beijings Famous Tax Waiting Area

Can you guess what this sign just out of the baggage area at Beijing's airport is suppose to say?
But then I can't read most of the Chinese characters.

Ever hear of Rose Honey Wine?

My first encounter with Rose Honey was behind a church.

But no ordinary church this. First, it's a Roman Catholic church in China, where Christians huddled in fear under Mao's Communists. It probably survived that period because it's in the very remote village of Cizhong on the steep banks of the Lancang (Lantsang, Lansang, Mekong) River, in Yunnan Province near the Tibetan border. (How remote is this place? Originally, I was told that I could not visit CiZhong because the road was under construction. It was, but I insisted. So we drove over gravel threads hacked out of rock slides 1000-2000 feet above the rushing muddy river below. If the driver would have sneezed and jerked the wheel, we would have ended floating down the river all the way to Vietnam.)

Anyway, the church was built by French missionaries at the end of 19th century, incinerated by irate Tibetans, then rebuilt around 1905. Being normal French, the missionaries planted grapes to make wine. So the vines still survive behind the church.

While locals make wine from this fruit, I've heard that Yunnan Red Wine Company makes a Rose Honey red wine.
I even read that Jancis Robinson’s 2008 appraisal of The Rose Honey: it's perhaps a little sweet to drink with food, but it’s a perfectly good entry-level wine.
(Above) Rose Honey grapes.(Above) These vines are descendents from the originals planted by the French missionaries in the late 1800s behind the now-historic CiZhong Roman Catholic church.
(Below) Today the church is nearly surrounded by farmer-grown Cabernet Sauvignon vines, with all of the fruit destined for Shangrila Winery.

I didn't deduct China from my time on earth.

Somewhere I read that the best travel seems to exist outside of time.
This last China Wine trip was like that. It's as if the month of travel was not deducted from my time on earth.
(Above) Way out in the remote western Xinjiang province, this is the Cossack ethnic neighborhood of Wulumuqi (Urumqi), the Province's capitol city. The whole town had the non-sleep energy of Las Vegas, but times 10. Time, however, can throw a tired traveler. Since the central government declares that all of China is to be on the same Beijing time, and Xinjiang is about 4 time zones to the West, dinner and night life don't begin here until about 10:00PM (Beijing time). Like Vegas, a peek at Google Earth reveals that the town sits like an oasis surrounded by huge sand dunes.

(Below) Out on the main street of Fukang, Xinjiang, we chose our food from the table and watched the husband and wife chefs cook it. Never heard of Fukang? Well, a 1003 kg meteorite crashed near here in 2000, it's a booming oil town sitting near what is reported to be more black gold reserves than the entire United States. And, for me, a branch of Citic Winery (formerly Suntime) has a massive wine factory and huge vineyards–like green islands in the sandy desert–on the outskirts of town.

In Search of Undiscovered Wine

In the course of my wondering life, travel has changed. During my first trip to Africa, there was not even satellite phone coverage over the remote areas I visited. For 5 weeks my wife had no idea of my whereabouts or even if I was still alive. But for me, it was the Columbus-like thrill of discovery.

Today much of the world is connected and known. Just Google it. Now I regularly email the chief of the Bediks, a tiny cliff-top Senegalese tribe virtually unknown when I first visited.

So where's the thrill, the adventure of travel today? And for me, where's the excitement of stumbling upon an undiscovered wine, a wine that even Google can't find?

I found it in China.

During September and October I explored all of China's major wine growing regions, (I'm told I'm one of the few if not only Westerner to do so). It was a Columbus-like trip of discovery about terroir, people, culture and myself. It was a travel adventure.
The photo of Beng (Bu) village with it's vineyards hints at the terroir in Yunnan Province near the Tibetan border. At 2000 to 3000 meters (6000-9000 feet), the vineyards in this area are probably the highest in the world. The growing season is Continental-like sunny (3000-3500 heat units); the well-drained soil is gravel, sand, loam and little clay (the whole area was once a lake bottom); and virtually no rain during growing time. Days are warm, nights sweater cool. And the only winery to use all the fruit is Shangrila.

Please note that the lines scribbled across the landscape are both one-car-width gravel roads and human trails.

Wait till I tell you about the wine.

His attitude touched me

I'm doing a book on Chinese Vineyards and Wineries. On this last trip, I traveled all over China to visit wine growing regions. People kept telling me that I'm probably the only Westerner who has actually visited all of China's wine growing regions.

This adventure is in the Yunnan Province, near Tibet.

With my 20 words of Chinese and an overwhelming desire to connect, I interacted this worker for about one hour. He harvested grapes. Over and over, he carried two baskets at 20 kilos (44 pounds) each of Cabernet Sauvignon grapes up a very steep hill to the loading truck. Hundreds of meters below roiled the muddy Lantsang (also called Lancang and Mekong) river caged in by steep rocky cliffs.

Now I look at the photos and wonder what this worker, about my age, is doing today. Harvest is done. Winter will begin soon. There but for fortune, he could be me. There but for fortune, I could be him.

How do you measure wealth?

These workers harvesting grapes high in the Yunnan mountains get less than 50 cents for picking a 20 kilo (44 pound) basket full of Cabernet Sauvignon.

This guy is carrying three baskets of grapes, each weighing about 20 kilos (44 pounds). He is going up a 60 degree slope. Do the math. Feel your leg muscles.

When it was lunch time, the workers invited me to join them in the shade.So what exactly is wealth? In the USA, for many wealth means things and money. These workers, earning maybe $10 per day during harvest, are willing to share what they have with someone from the "wealthiest" country on our planet. Makes me wonder who is wealthier?

The world's highest vineyards

We are probably about 2500 meters (8200 feet) above sea level in the above photograph. We're not far from the border with Tibet. That is the muddy Lantang River cutting through those sheer rock walls. The thin white line on the middle right–about 100 meters above the rushing river–is the main highway. It's a gravel track about one and one-half car-widths wide. Rock avalanches are frequent. But it's the only road. Yes, you can see it continue up the mountain in the background. All the while we're driving on that highway, I'm hoping our driver doesn't sneeze to distract his concentration.

And those are Cabernet Sauvignon vines in the foreground.

This is harvest in Yunnan Province of China.
This is how you get from one terrace to another. Yes, it's steep here.
Our next vineyard was at about 3000 meters (about 9800 feet). Many outsiders have troubles adjusting to the altitude.

I don't know of any vineyards in the world at a higher altitude than these in the Yunnan Province. And they're growing warm climate varietals: Cab Sauvignon and a little Merlot for a winery appropriately named ShangriLa.