Grapes in Bordeaux, California and Xinjiang have met with vastly different fates for years.
The French have turned them into tasty and profitable red wine for more than 300 years and the Americans followed suit in the late 19th century, but in western China they've usually ended up dried, as raisins.
That could all be about the change with Chinese wine merchants keen to show the world that Xinjiang can become one of the world's premier red wine production bases.
'Xinjiang is located at roughly the same latitude as Bordeaux and California, making it an ideal place for growing grapes,' said Fred Nauleau, a French winemaker hired by the Citic Guoan Wine Company, who has spent five years in the autonomous region. 'And I was surprised to find that red wine I made here could inherit the fine and elegant style which once just belonged to old world, French wine.'
Nauleau said he was attracted to Xinjiang by its ebullient culture and the freedom to make different styles and tastes of wine.
Mainland demand for red wine has soared in the past decade, with Beverage World Magazine saying it has seen the highest growth in consumption globally since 2008. In the first four months of this year, the mainland imported 41,809 kilolitres of bottled wine, worth US$177.51 million, the magazine said. The volume was up 76.5 per cent year on year and the value up 91.1 per cent.