A First for China and me: A Photo/Wine Tour

Looks like it's going to happen. And I'm getting very excited. I'll be leading a China Photo/Wine Tour September 5-16. By the way, there will be lots of selected culture sites too. First, take a look at just three of the wineries we will visit.
Are these anything like the Chinese Wineries you imagined?
Oh, you didn't know that the Chinese did wine. Yes, they do. China has more vineyard acreage than the United States and South Africa combined and produces more wine than Germany.
Let me know what you think of these wineries. And check out the winemakers.

Chateau Changyu AFIP winery in Beijing area.


Chateau Junding in Shandong Province.

Chateau Huadong-Parry in Shandong Province. That's the beautiful coastal city of Qingdao, beer capitol of China, in the background.


And check out these winemakers we will meet. Does this clash with your imagination of a Chinese winemaker?

Ruan Shilli, winemaker and vineyard manager standing on the castle wall three floors up at Changyu AFIP. (For your first Chinese lesson: the Chinese put the last name first.)

Xia Gloria, winemaker at Huadong Parry in Shandong Province.


Since harvest happens during our trip, we will opportunities to meet vineyard workers. For the dentists that join our trip, China could be a big market. Many workers I've photographed have teeth that probably have never seen a dentist's drill.

Google is more of a man than I

When I first heard the news, I twinged of guilt.

More than likely you heard that today Google threatened to pull out of China. Apparently someone in China compromised Google's system and targeted malware attacks on some gmail account holders–who just happened to be activists against the Chinese government. Obviously the main suspect, the Chinese government's heavy hand.

As the story unfolded, it brought memories of my own internet adventures in China.

For me, Beijing was no problem internet wise. I wasn't Googling or Baiduing (verbasizeation of the Chinese version of Google) "Tibet" or "free speech" and the country's anniversary celebration was still several weeks away. But at Grace Winery in Shanxi Province, I went to make my nightly call to my wife through Skype. Surprise. On the screen appeared the dreaded "you have been redirected" to no where message. I tired again. And again. Apparently The Government doesn't always care for the freedom Skype offers.

But heck, I just wanted to talk with my wife. Now I'm not a computer wiz. So it took me several hours to figure out how to get around the block. Too late to talk with my wife that night; so I looked at dozens of blogs reporting the same blocked Skype problem I had.

Late that night, the horns of dilemma gored me.

I started to post how I circumnavigated the Skype block. Then a bucket full of cold reality splashed me. Here I was in China trying to establish relationships with wineries. And these wineries were either totally or mostly owned by the Chinese government. Obviously, they could read everything I posted.

I caved. I didn't post. I could have helped lots of people. But I kept justifying, "if I posted, the government would know the trick and me."

Now a couple of months later, hearing the Google news I feel twinges of guilt. Google didn't cave. With its actions today, Google is more of a man than I.


Part of a sculpture in the Forbidden City, Bejing, China.

How Wine Spectator made a photographer feel better

Without Kitri McGuire, Marketing Communications Director at Sokol Blosser Winery, I would never have known.

Wine Spectator magazine voted my latest book "One of the Best New Reads for wine lovers". Surprise, a photography book voted as a Best Read. I guess a picture is worth eight thousand well-crafted words after all. Makes me feel better about being a lowly photographer.

This is a revised blog. Wine Spectator suggested that if I wanted to continue working with them–which I do, I take down the entire reprint I had on this blog. Here is a small clip and link to their site. You will need to be a member to read the entire article. Sorry.

Oregon: The Taste of Wine
 by Jānis Miglavs, with an introduction by Jim Bernau (Graphic Arts Books, 128 pages, $24.95)


Travel photographer J¯anis Miglavs definitely has an eye for something other than typical vineyard and winery shots. - Harvey Steiman

Ultimate Cage fighter lawyers have my book

This coming Tuesday, parties involved with the bankruptcy of Graphic Arts, the publisher of my Oregon Wine book, will be in court to duke out who owns what assets, including the book rights to my book. I'm picturing an Ultimate Fighting Cage with lawyers in suits punching and clawing each other. This is just round one. I hope the judge lets me take photos.

I own the copyright to the words and photos, but not the book. There are no more books in the warehouse and we can't reprint until the judge determines who owns what assets.

At first I laughed

For China the future is still ahead.

Harvest, Rongchen winery, Hebei Province, China.


Working as a team, these two women picked about 10 crates of Chardonnay grapes each during 4 hours of harvest that day. While they were some of the slowest pickers in the vineyard that day, I calculated that if they worked all day, everyday of the year, it would take them almost 10 years to earn enough money to buy the camera and lens I used to photograph them.

It made reflect. My financial future is already here. For these two women, and most Chinese, their financial future is still ahead.

What matters now?

Tonight I just came across Seth Godin's blog entry where he asked dozens of interesting people, "What matters now?" He then compiled the answers and published them in an e-book.

The e-book answers made me reflect about the importance of powerful questions as I'm crafting my next book, Lessons from the Vineyard-Insights on our Earth, Character and Spirit. The seed sprouted with the last question I asked 87 Oregon winemakers, owners and vineyard workers for my last book: "What have you learned from the vineyard?"

Inspired by how Jesus used parables about the vineyard for his lessons, I thought the vineyard could be a metaphor for my new Lessons book. After all, isn't the vineyard an interaction between man, nature and God?

So then what does the vineyard teach us?