Wine tours are the latest attraction to China’s emerging Ningxia region
The harsh plains of Ningxia may seem an unlikely home for award-winning wine, but visitors can now explore the region’s vineyards to see how it’s made
To the west of Ningxia’s capital, Yinchuan, the four-lane Shenyang Highway pierces a sun-parched, rocky expanse. To one side are the city limits, to the other the eastern foothills of the Helan Mountains, a 200km-long divider separating the southern flanks of Inner Mongolia’s Gobi Desert and arid – yet still fertile – plains.
The Helan silhouette hangs over the horizon like a mirage, its crevices hard to make out through the haze that blankets the sky even on this crisp and sunny October morning.
“It’s a pity you can’t see the view today, for it makes a very special start to the tour,” says “Kiki” Chen Shu, my driver and the founder and main English-speaking guide of Ningxia Wine, a small company that organises winery tours in the Ningxia Hui autonomous region’s Helan Mountains East.
Despite its relatively small size, Helan Mountains East – which encompasses subregions including Shizuishan, Yinchuan, Yongning, Qingtongxia and Hongsipu – has drawn comparisons to Argentina’s Mendoza wine region, which is geographically similar.
Helan Mountains East piqued international interest in 2011, when the Jia Bei Lan Grand Reserve 2009, a cabernet sauvignon by producer Helan Qingxue, won the international trophy in the Decanter World Wine Awards Bordeaux blend category.
