pantone801

Great Wall Winery

// February 27th, 2010 // Uncategorized

I recently spent a week and a half in Qinhuangdao (QHD), China. QHD is 300km east of Beijing and is a somewhat industrial city with little to do. The Chinese think of QHD as a great summer retreat, and in summer it is lovely, but after living in South Africa, NZ, and the East and West coasts of Australia the beachfront does not come anywhere close, and this trip was in the middle of winter.

This was my first trip to QHD in winter, and thankfully David Jones had all their winter gear on sale and so I was prepared for the -10°C weather. I was at QHD for work, and there was a lot of work to do, and some long hours, but on a Sunday my local colleagues took me and a few other colleagues from the US to the Great Wall Winery.

The winery is a 1 hour drive from QHD, and is set overlooking a lake with rows of grape vines. As we were there in winter the vines were leafless and the lake was frozen. Great Wall winery is an amazing operation, with 17,000 barrels of American oak that cost US$600 each for the barrel only, filled with two wine varieties- Cabernet or Chardonnay. The Cabernet is not great, and the Chardonnay is alright, and a picked a up few bottles.

The wine-tour was followed up with a Chinese lunch and a local chain called Double-Dragon, and I tried some new foods including blood-sausage in a cabbage soup. The sausage inner had a consistency of melted chocolate and tasted terrible. I also tried donkey meat; which was delicious. Its pressed into a loaf with an cooked egg yolk in the centre and thinly sliced, and tasted like very good ham. Yum.

See more pics from my China trip this flicker photoset.