China has received its first Demeter-certified vineyard. Demeter is the worldwide (private) certification for biodynamic agriculture. The winery is Silver Heights and is located in Ningxia in north-central China. We visited Silver Heights a few years ago; read more about that here
Silver Heights is run by Emma Gao and her French husband, Thierry Courtade, whom she met in Bordeaux while studying oenology. The winery previously had organic certification both in China and in the EU.
It took six years of hard work to convert the property’s 70 hectares to biodynamic farming. Ningxia has good conditions for organic agriculture. They only get 200 mm of rain annually, so irrigation is necessary. On the other hand, they have few problems with fungal diseases.
Read more: vino-joy
Read: more on organics and biodynamics in BKWine’s book Organic, Biodynamic and Natural winemaking.
