We left on Friday to start the week with Friday through Monday at one of the largest Chinese wineries Grace Vineyards. Mary met the CEO at one of her We Chat group get together in Hong Kong in early July. We had had a bottle of one of their wines at the Peace Restaurant in Shanghai a couple years ago and Mary thought it was great. The CEO is a lady that became CEO about 10 years ago after graduating from Michigan. Her dad started the vineyard. So Mary got invited to stay so we did. Since it was more or less on the way to Dunhuang we went there first.
This place is about an hour from the Tiayuan airport in the middle of nowhere. Read the post about it in the link above so I don’t have to say the same things here.
We got up the first morning and wondered around the gardens before breakfast.
We had a tour of the winery in the morning.
We spent most of the day just sitting on the deck in the garden reading and just taking in the good weather and extreme quiet.
Of course with all meals but breakfast we had to have wine. I think we drank 7 or 8 bottles while we were there. It is good wine. The food they served was also much better than the typical Chinese food. Later Saturday afternoon we toured the vineyards and the canyon on the East edge of the vineyard. The week after we were there they were going to start the harvest of some of the grapes. The week we were there we were they only people staying there.
That was the extent of Saturday other than posing for a picture and eating dinner with about 2 bottles of wine and then off to bed about 9. Absolutely nothing else to do.
The next day we got a car and went to a couple places within a couple hours of the vineyards. In the morning we went to the Chang family compound/home. Old man Chang invented banking in China or something. This area is famous for banking during the 18th and 19th centuries.
The place itself was a small version of the Forbidden city with gardens, statues, flowers, ponds and temples surrounding it.
One bit of history that I did not find any reference to anywhere at this place is that old man Chang is the originator of the common banking term “KA-CHING”
We then headed to a town a couple hours away that I don’t remember the name of to go to the old town. This was a big banking center in the old days. It was similar to Lijang we went to a couple years ago. It had an old wall.
Old buildings and busy streets (many thousands of people still live and work here)
They also had a fat Chinese guy and sheep on the street.
It was back to the vineyard for the rest of Sunday and all of Monday. Monday was total relaxation. Hanging out on the deck all day, eating and drinking.
So as the day ends,
we had our last dinner, our last bottle of wine and off to bed so we could get to the airport and catch a flight to Dunhuang in the morning.