The missionaries’ valley
Xiaoling is in Cizhong, a village in Deqin county, north-west Yunnan, on the upper Mekong, near the Kawa Karpo (Meili) range, sacred in Tibetan Buddhism. French Catholic missionaries planted vines here in the nineteenth century to make sacramental wine. Bertrand Cristau, a Frenchman who has lived in China for decades, first visited in 2010 and set up Xiaoling in 2013 to continue that story. The name means “cloudy peak of the mountains”.
Terraces in the sky
The vineyards are small terraced plots at around 2,000–2,400 metres, at a very low latitude, 28° north, with bright sun and mixed soils containing limestone; Chardonnay, which ripens fast, is planted higher, at about 2,700 metres. Xiaoling owns little land: it works with local Tibetan families, many of whose vines are old, under a quality charter.
The wines
The reds blend Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Carmenère, fermented in earthenware jars and aged mostly in older oak, with advice from the Burgundian consultant Sylvain Pitiot; the winemaker is Feng Jian. The first vintage, 2014, won a gold medal at the China Wine & Spirits Awards. Andrew Jefford, in Decanter, called the 2015 the best Chinese red he had tasted that year, and James Suckling placed Xiao Ling Cizhong 2019 at No.4 in his Top 100 Wines of China 2022. The style is fresh, refined and lighter than many Chinese reds, closer in spirit to Burgundy than Bordeaux. There is also a second wine, Sentiers de XiaoLing.