Changyu Thinks Bigger than Disneyland

Changyu, officially China's oldest winery—though Zhang Bishi founded the winery in 1892, that was long after adventurous French monks planted productive vines and made wine in remote mountainous Cizhong village in Yunnan province—has big wine plans. 

 Changyu started with industrial-sized facilities scattered throughout Yantai city, in Shandong province.

Then they partnered with the French to build Changyu-Castel in Yantai in 2002 and with the Canadians for Château Changyu Ice wine in northern Liaoning Province and Changyu Kely Estate in New Zealand. 

 And then came the Disney-like marketing effort called Chateau Changyu AFIP Global.  

Besides, these facilities, the company is building three other chateaus—Changyu Baron Balboa in Xinjiang Uygur province, Changyu Moser XV in Ningxia province and Changyu Reina in Shaanxi—planed to open in 2013. Adding to this armada of wineries, Changyu  announced at the end of June plans to build a “wine city” in Yantai.  Blueprints call for the 413 ha facility to have a research institute, wine production center, vineyards, an international wine trading center and, of course, a “European-style village.”

Obviously Changyu feels it has a winning formula with the European-style villages as wine tourism destinations. Back at AFIP, even the adjoining estate vineyard serves dual purposes, both as a source of wine grapes and as a scenic experience with the Yan shan Mountains in the background. A young couple stroll hand in hand through the vineyard on the two-kilometer long street-wide concrete walkway with a lacy metal arched overhang. They giggle and photograph themselves with iPhones near tight clusters of Cabernet Sauvignon grapes hanging ready for harvest.


Changyu just might have the winning wine formula—by combining entertainment, education and tasting—for luring Chinese to wine. 

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

China: The Wild New Wine Frontier

This is Chateau Huadong Parry in Shandong Province. General Manager thinks that for China, this winery is too small.

WA Wine Tour Guide cover

Wow, did you see the great shot on the new Washington Wine Tour Guide? 

Oh, wait, that's my photograph.

Epic Journey of Spiritual Discovery

When I look back at my behind-the-scenes adventures while gathering Ancient Myths and Architypal Dreams from Africa's most remote tribes, the stories are amazing. For example, one night I hear a lion roaring while I'm reading Shakespeare in my little backpacking tent at the edge of a Karo tribe village along the Omo River. Hearing that lion roar was a truly a reality shift for me.  This wasn't a zoo.  The next roar is closer. Then closer.  Do something. I looked around my tent to make sure that I didn't have any food inside. (Later a friend reminded me that indeed I was the food.) 

Come to the Epic Journey Presentation to hear how the story ends.

(Above) This is the Konso tribe village called Busso, one of my favorite villages in all of Africa.

(Above) The Konso tribe witch doctor has a region-wide reputation of being able to pull out evil spirits to cure diseases. So in the interest of spiritual science, I had to go and check him out. 

He wanted to charge me to take photographs, but he wanted some professional photographs of himself.  When he told me his fee, I replied in a very surprised voice, that my fee was exactly the same. What to do? He wouldn't give in, nor would I. Finally, the culture minister who was traveling with us, paid the fees. He actually wanted the witch doctor perform magic on him.

This boy had severe headaches before he went to the witch doctor and reported that he felt better after the "operation." Unfortunately, I never did a long term follow  up.

 (Above) This is the evil spirit the witch doctor pulled from the subject. Looks pretty nasty; so does the witch doctor's hand.

(Above) On my first visit to Busso in 2001, I photographed an old man. I printed lots of the photographs I snapped during that first trip and took them with me on the second trip. It turns out the old man had died. When I gave the photograph to the son, he cried. It was the only thing he had to remember his father. That's the power of photography.


Epic Journey of Spiritual Discovery live presentation
July 1, 2012   4:00 to 5:30pm
Mumm Napa Gallery 
8445 Silverado Trail
Rutherford, CA 94573
RSVP  707-967-7740 

What does this road look like?

Since I've been writing for 6 to 8 hours a day on my China Winery book, I try to take a walk or bicycle ride just to escape. During that escape, I take photographs just for fun. This one is from a week ago on the main road to our house. It was taken with a Nikon D7000. Since then I've  sold that camera as it was replaced with a D800. 

So what do you think?

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.