Helan Qingxue and Jia Bei Lan: the Decanter trophy that put Ningxia on the map

Adam Lechmere’s report for Decanter, filed after the presentation dinner, is the plain account. For the first time in the history of the Decanter World Wine Awards, he wrote, a Chinese wine had won at the highest level. The wine was He Lan Qing Xue’s Jia Bei Lan 2009, a Cabernet blend, and the prize was the Red Bordeaux Varietal Over £10 International Trophy. The dinner was at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. This directory files the producer as Helan Qingxue, in Ningxia. The 2011 results listing prints the name He Lan Qing Xue.

The same report gives the scale of the prize. Only 25 International trophies were awarded, chosen from more than 12,000 wines. In the final category the wine was tasted against Regional trophy winners, including St Emilion Grand Cru Chateau Boutisse and Catena Zapata’s Appellation Cabernet Franc, and against wines from Australia, South Africa, California and other regions that specialise in Bordeaux blends. He Lan Qing Xue also won a Silver for its 2008 Cabernet Sauvignon. The judges’ words, as that report quotes them, were “supple, graceful and ripe but not flashy” and “excellent length and four-square tannins”.

The awards listing for the entry is still published. It names He Lan Qing Xue, Jia Bei Lan, Ningxia, China (Mainland), vintage 2009, and the award as an International Trophy. Alcohol is given as 13.0%. The composition is 80% Cabernet Sauvignon, 15% Merlot and 5% Cabernet Gernischt. The tasting note on that page is: “Big, quite leafy black fruit with exciting minty perfume. Medium-bodied, supple, graceful and ripe but not flashy - has some Bordelais restraint. Excellent length and four square tannins - could age for 5-6 years.” No numeric score is printed there. This page does not supply one.

Ch’ng Poh Tiong’s category note, from the 2011 results, says the panel of three judges was unanimous, and that the wine’s balance and finesse stood out against reds he calls massively extracted. He prints the same 80/15/5 blend, and spells the third grape Cabernet Gernicht. The awards listing spells it Cabernet Gernischt. Both spellings are left as the pages print them.

That note also gives the cellar and the quantities. The first vintage was 2005. Annual production of the top red was around 20,000 bottles, and only 13,000 in 2009. The winery made around another 30,000 bottles of another red. Grapes were hand-picked, sorted again by hand, fermented at around 30 degrees Celsius and kept on the skins for three weeks. The wine was neither fined nor filtered. It spent 12 months in oak, 60% new French and European and 40% used American. Li Demei is named as consultant from 2006. The news report adds that he trained in Bordeaux and interned at Chateau Palmer.

The place sentence on the category note is the 2011 one: land-locked Ningxia, hot dry summers, winters that can fall to minus 25 degrees Celsius, and vines buried to keep them alive. Ownership, as that page states it, was split half and half between the local grape and wine association and the management team. The 2009, it says, was on sale in Yinchuan, with one shop in Beijing and one in Shanghai, at an ex-cellar price of RMB 148, about £13. The news report’s retail figure is also about £13, and it says the wine was then sold only in China. Those are 2011 sentences. They are not a current price, and they are not a current ownership structure.

In 2021 Ch’ng returned to the wine in a Decanter piece, “Ten years on”. He writes that Helan Qingxue planted its first vines in 2005, and that the vineyard had doubled from an initial 13 hectares. Professor Li Demei encouraged the entry. Ningxia was not on the form. Earlier Chinese entries had come mainly from Shandong and Xinjiang, and the team had to ask for the region to be added. The caption on the photograph of the 2011 presentation in London names the proprietors Hu Suzhen and Rong Jian, Steven Spurrier as chairman of the awards, the winemaker Zhang Jing, and the consultant Li Demei. He calls the competition the game changer that propelled Ningxia into the international league. The piece also describes a later vertical tasting. The scores and notes from that sitting are not copied here.

Sylvia Wu, in Decanter China on 12 September 2024, calls the wine Jia Bei Lan Grand Reserve 2009 and the prize an International Trophy, equivalent to today’s Best in Show. She quotes Li Demei recalling that Ningxia was not listed on the entry form. She treats 2011 as the first time the region left an impression, and the award as the one that brought it attention at home and abroad. The 2011 news report and the awards listing do not use the words Grand Reserve. They name the wine Jia Bei Lan.

Two claims already sit in this directory, and they are not re-scored here. The Ningxia guide cites James Suckling’s report that Zhang Jing makes the wine at Helan Qingxue, that she has been trialling Malbec, and that the estate was promoted to Second Growth in 2019. The critics’ corner records the 2011 trophy. The same page is where this directory notes that Jancis Robinson listed Helan Qingxue among the wines that rose in a blind tasting, with Kanaan rated best overall and Silver Heights also named. A separate note covers Emma Gao of Silver Heights. No new point score is added from those pieces. The guide to Chinese wine ties this note to the rest of the directory.

A visit is a separate question. The visit notes list Helan Qingxue among the Ningxia estates with no confirmed booking page. No opening hour, tour or visitor programme is published here, because none was confirmed. Dongfang Yuxing, a different estate, is the later Ningxia Best in Show this directory records, from 2025. It is not this bottle.