YINCHUAN: Feng Chao had strived to escape his home, a backward hinterland near the Gobi Desert back then, until three years ago, when he decided to return, opening a homestay.
He knows he made the right choice as his business has been booming lately, with all rooms fully booked during the May Day holiday.
“Even though we provide delicious dishes and barbecue buffet, I know it is the vast vineyards in the Gobi Desert that attract tourists,” said Feng, 35.
Feng hails from Haoyuan Village, Xixia District of Yinchuan, capital of northwest China’s Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region.
The region boasts a unique terroir for making top-class wine, with its prolonged sunshine and a cool, dry climate contributing positively to grape planting. Since the production of its first bottle of wine in 1984, the land-locked region has become a rising star on the world’s wine map, with local wines winning many international awards.
More than 200 wineries have settled down in the eastern foothills of Helan Mountain over the years, including 19 wineries in Haoyuan Village. Feng always believes that it was the wine industry that saved his village, which was merely a barren stretch of land with scars of quarry sites and mine pits 20 years ago. –The Daily Mail-China Daily news exchange item
