China winery visit: Six photos from Helan Qing Xue in Ningxia

By Jim Boyce

I accompanied Li Demei and Ch’ng Poh Tiong this week on a winery tour of Xinjiang and Ningxia, which included stops at Tuoling Winery close to Turpan in the former region and at Helan Qing Xue, Xi Xia King and Helan Mountain  not far from the capital, Yinchuan, in the latter region.

Some people might have heard of Helan Qing Xue as one of its wines, Jia Bei Lan Cabernet 2009, recently won an “international trophy” at this year’s Decanter World Wine Awards, a first for a Chinese wine, though it has received good responses here in China for some time. Li is chief wine consultant for the winery, as well as for Tuoling, while Ch’ng is editor of The Wine Review and Decanter’s tasting panel chair for the Middle East, Far East and Asia region. (See this interview I did with Ch’ng three years ago.)

I’ll have more on the tasting, which covered six wines, but for now a few photos from the winery.

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