14 years ago, in 2007, in response to the call of the state, Fujian entrepreneur Chen Deqi came to the Gobi Desert outside Yongning County in Ningxia, picked up a handful of soil and sniffed it, and after thinking for 15 minutes, Chen Deqi decided to buy the 100,000 mu of Gobi Desert here for 200 million yuan. It is such a decision that Chen Deqi has since taken root in the desert, has invested more than 2 billion yuan, with 14 years of persistence, achieved the miracle of turning a dry desert into a golden beach, built 100,000 acres of Helan Shen organic vineyards, led more than 3,000 local "Haigu migration" out of poverty, Helan Shen wine also won a place for Chinese wine in the world.
The TV series "Mountains and Seas" takes him as the prototype and restores the Minning cooperation that spanned 2,000 kilometers in that year, and Chen Deqi is the struggler and forerunner in the history of this development.
Once a dry desert, today helan shen 100,000 acres of organic vineyards
Most of the Gobi desert in the eastern foothills of Helan Mountain is "sand and gravel", and "Nian" is full of sand, and before Chen Deqi, no one was willing to buy it.
Chen Deqi saw at a glance the value of this land. Located at the same latitude in Bordeaux, France at 38.5 degrees north latitude, this land is rich in minerals, excellent permeability, dry and rainy, sunshine time, very suitable for the growth of high-quality wine grapes.
Years of business mind combined with the courage to fight and a strong sense of home and country make this seemingly "crazy" decision seem reasonable.
(The prototype of the TV series "Mountains and Seas", "Son of the Earth" Chen Deqi)
After buying this land, Chen Deqi plunged into this land and rarely left. Change into straw hats and straw shoes, eat instant noodles mixed with sand, live in a color steel house of less than 20 square meters, and lead local farmers to level the land, dig wells and plant trees, build roads and electricity, and take the lead in everything.
(Dry desert turned into an ecological oasis, and modern wineries were built.)
The 5 million trees planted turned the dry desert into an oasis, and the establishment of 100,000 acres of Helan Shen organic vineyards enabled more than 3,000 people to live a good life. Chen Deqi has become a model chinese entrepreneur and has received numerous awards, but he is still rooted in this land and strives to achieve "the best wine in the world".
"Many of my employees live in small buildings, and they hold their mobile phones to let me see photos of their houses, and I still live in the color steel room," Chen Deqi's smiling face was full of "contentment."
The first person to grow grapes in that year is now the business card of Chinese wine
From the first grape planting in Yongning County and even the eastern foothills of Helan Mountain, to the continuous improvement and innovation of grape growing technology and winemaking technology, today's Helan Shen International Winery is the largest single organic vineyard in China, with the only EU and domestic dual organic certification in China, respecting tradition and strictly controlling the number and yield of planting. The almost demanding requirements are a guarantee of the high quality of the wines produced.
The first L-shaped cultivation
Chen Deqi changed the traditional "fan frame" management mode of wine grapes, changed to inverted "L" frame shape, let the grapes grow at an oblique angle, hang fruit branches horizontally, maintain the whole ⻬ uniformity, solve the problem of overwintering vines and bury roots, and increase the survival rate of grapes from 70% to 90%. Moreover, "the vine is tilted so that it can be buried in the winter into a dormant period, and when the vine is unearthed, the germination is more even." "This cultivation technique has now been widely promoted by domestic viticulture.
Strictly control production and respect tradition
In order to ensure the excellent quality of the grapes, each grape only takes its first flowering fruit, and the rest is directly removed and left behind, and the number of plants and yields are strictly controlled. "Grapes are not as high as possible, and excess grapes should be removed without hesitation." In Chen Deqi's concept, only high standards can grow good grapes and make good wine.
Every year in the picking season, the grape picking of Helan Shen International Winery uses manual picking, "now the French labor cost is expensive, many vineyards are picked by machine, the picking process is easy to cause damage to the grapes, and some grape leaves are difficult to separate, which affects the quality of the wine", Chen Deqi said, "We are all manual picking, generally at 3 o'clock in the morning to pick, workers with miners hats have lights on it, this time the grapes picked are the freshest." ”
Top winemaking consultants produce top quality wines
Chen Deqi spared no expense to hire Stéphane Toutoundji, the new generation leader of the winemaking technical team of OENOTEAM and the world's top ten winemakers, such as the famous French white winery, Zhuozhuang, Andron Estate, as the chief winemaking consultant of Helan Shen International Winery. From planting, harvesting to brewing into oak barrels, personally guide and control the whole process, and fully ensure the high quality of wine.
5,000㎡ natural oxygen bar wine cellar that "breathes" on the ground
The use of energy-saving and environmentally friendly ground source heat pump and humidification device to effectively control the temperature and humidity, the temperature can be controlled at 13-15 ° C all year round, the humidity can be controlled at about 75%-85%, and the use of original imported French oak barrel aging, to ensure that the quality of each drop of wine is consistent.
With so many strict requirements, the wines of Helan Shen International Winery are world-renowned and have become the benchmark of Ningxia and even Chinese wines.
The dream of a century-old grape kingdom on the Gobi Desert continues
"I will spare no effort to bravely be a Gobi oasis man." Chen Deqi once said this, and has always practiced this. He has a century-old dream of a grape kingdom on the Gobi Desert - to build a grape town integrating wineries, vineyards, project museums, resorts, schools and kindergartens, with a world-class winery museum, to create Ningxia's "purple business card".
He has invested more than 2 billion yuan and 14 years for this dream, and he will continue to invest more and lead more "Haigu Shift", not only to get rid of poverty, but to become rich for a long time. When talking about the future, Chen Deqi's eyes revealed a firmness, believing that the future in Chen Deqi's heart would surely be realized in the near future.
Chen Deqi and his Helan God International Winery have received honors in recent years
In 2012, CCTV's second "Children of the Earth" awarded Chen Deqi the 2012 National Top Ten Agricultural Science and Technology Figures.
In 2017, the deeds were selected for the six-episode TV documentary "Brilliant China" jointly produced by the Propaganda Department of the CPC Central Committee and CCTV.
In 2018, his deeds in Ningxia were included in the documentary "Great, My Country", becoming the only "camp entrepreneur" selected.
In January 2021, the TV series "Mountains and Seas" adapted from the prototype deeds was a hit and specially participated.
In February 2021, the deeds reflected the large-scale documentary "Minning Chronicle" of the CCTV Record Channel that Fujian helped Ningxia to overcome poverty.
In September 2021, he was interviewed by Douban's high-scoring documentary Hong Kong TVB "The Road to Infinity".
In January 2022, the documentary "Minning Chronicle 2021" once again reported on Chen Deqi's "purple new dream".
In the course of more than ten years of endeavor, Helan Shen International Winery has achieved gratifying results and fruitful results, won the domestic and EUROPEAN double organic certification, and successively won the gold medal of the British Decanter 2016 International Wine Competition, the 23rd, 24th, 25th, 26th and 27th Brussels International Wine Competition, the gold medal and gold medal of the French Paris Gilbert Wine Challenge Competition.
2016, 2017, 2018 Wine100 China Best Wine Competition Black Gold Award, 2018, 2020 FIWA France International Organic Wine Competition Big Gold Award, Gold Award, the company has been awarded more than ten honors such as International Green Ecological Demonstration Enterprise, National Greening Model Unit, Autonomous Region Agricultural Industrialization Key Enterprise and so on.
For the theft and fraudulent use of Mr. Chen Deqi's story prototype, image and "Helan Shen" brand name for illegal publicity, Mr. Chen Deqi and "Helan Shen" (Ningxia) International Winery will reserve the right to pursue their legal responsibilities.