Silver Heights Winery

  During Christmas holidays, I returned to China to spend my vacation, I appreciated to have the chance to taste wines of Silver Heights winery, so I want to introduce this special winery to you today.

  Same as Helan Qingxue winery that we introduced last week, Silver Heights winery is located at Donglu of Helan Mountain too, so this area is exactly good for grape growing and wine making. 

  Silver Heights is a young family winery, it is established in 2007 by Ms. Gao and her father. The winery has no beautiful building, no luxurious decorating, even no decent winery, but very clean and professional. The yield of the first year, 2007, it is 2,400 bottles/year, today they have 15 hectares vineyard and the yield is 30,000 bottles/year. It is a small winery in China, but why we want to introduce such a small and not well-known winery, especially in big China and among lots of big brand? We think that wine is art, we don’t judge a success only by quantity, we should pay more attention to those who make wines by heart, their dreams are to make wine, not to make money. So we should protect them, respect them, and help them to be known by more and more people. As the winery is better and better, some businessmen and big companies want to buy the winery or become the shareholder, but they are all refused by Ms. Gao, she wants to manage this vinyard carefully, her goal is to make better wine, not more money.

  Silver Heights winery makes two wines today, one is Silver Heights Family Reserve and another is Silver Heights ‘The summit‘. In 2010, WM Jancis Robinson has been to China, she gave 16 points to Silver Heights Family Reserve 2007 and gave 16+ points to Silver Heights Family Reserve 2008, it is a good level for Chinese wines. Now follow me to taste the two wines.

Firstly, I tasted the Silver Heights ‘The summit’ 2007 and 2008, you can see it in left hand of Ms.Gao in the photo. It is comprised of 60% cabernet sauvignon, 20% cabernet gernischt and 20% cabernet franc. Ruby color, elegant oak and strawberry flavor, in the mouth, the wine is soft, balance and well structured with the tannin, fruity and acidity. Medium length in the end. Personal feelings: this wine is very ‘Bordeaux’. I think the vintage 2007 have a very high starting to reflect the hard working from the owner; the flavor and taste of the vintage 2008 are more fine and profound than 2007. Let me show you the honor from this wine: vintage 2007, 82/100 from Robert Parker’s Wine Advocate; Jancis Robinson rated its 2008 vintage 16+ out of 20 points and commented in April 2010: ‘deep and rich, still very chewy. Very well done!’ 

  Another wine that I tasted is the “2009 Silver Heights Family Reserve”, you can see it in right hand of Ms.Gao in the photo. It is comprised of 80% Cabernet Sauvignon, 10% Cabernet Franc and 10% Cabernet Germischt. Deep garnet in color, it has a nose of bing cherry, dusty wet basement and a slight hint of blackberry jam. The palate initially hits you with tastes of cherry and blackberry, but the mid-palate is lacking a bit, however, the cherry flavors continue to a finish of both cherries and chocolate.   

  While not a great wine it is still definitely a good wine - a lot better than most of the other domestic wines here. What intrigues me about Silver Heights is their willingness to take their time in producing wine in China. Most other winemakers pick their grapes like they were apples or oranges. Silver Heights understands that growing quality grapes for their wines is the proper way to do it.