German Grapes Flourish in China

By staff reporter ZHOU LIN

On March 28, at the invitation of the German Körber Foundation in Berlin, President Xi Jinping delivered a speech on China’s foreign policy. Special mention was given to German winemaker Norbert Gorres.

“Norbert Gorres is a wine expert who, together with his assistant Hans Beu, made 17 trips to Zaozhuang City in east China’s Shandong Province between 2000 and 2009 to share his knowledge of viticulture and grafting technology with local farmers. He also authorized the local winery to make world-class wine under his family business label. In those nine years, Gorres and Beu jointly subsidized eight impoverished students in Zaozhuang to finance their studies. In 2007, when Beu’s health deteriorated, he asked Gorres to personally deliver one final donation of RMB 2,000 to two students, whose schooling he had been supporting. Gorres finally realized Beu’s wish on August 1, 2008, moving the locals to tears,” Xi said.

Today, helped by the two German experts, a vast expanse of thriving vineyards has come into being in Shanting District of Zaozhuang. Standing out in the green vastness is the Norbert-Hans Vineyard in typical European style, named after its founding fathers. A two-meter-high bronze statue of the elderly Gorres, shown with a glass of wine in his hand, smiling at the friendship between two nations, stands by the side of the grape plantation.

Norbert Gorres with Chinese farmers. Li Zongxian

New Viticulture

Shanting District of Zaozhuang is an area affected by resource depletion after decades of coal mining as a pillar industry. The authorities have sought to transform the local economy into a more sustainable one by encouraging farmers to grow grapes. In 2000, the State Administration of Foreign Experts Affairs, China’s top governmental agency for overseas headhunting, invited Gorres to help.

Gorres, a member of Germany’s Senior Experten Service (SES), a non-profit organization that offers retired experts opportunities to pass on their skills and knowledge to those in need both at home and abroad, was invited to get the local winemaking industry off the ground. Together with Beu, Gorres taught local farmers how to grow grapes and make world-class wines.

Wearing loose and faded overalls, Yu Tingbo, 70, chief director of grape cultivation at Norbert-Hans Vineyard, recalled in a strong eastern Shandong accent, “It was March 13, 2000, when two German experts came to Shanting to teach local farmers how to cultivate the grape saplings they had brought.” The vast farmland where the vineyard is located then began a trial period of growing foreign grape varieties.

When Gorres and Beu returned in late August 2000, they were satisfied with the overall cultivation situation and impressed with the hard work the farmers had put in. They had strictly followed their instructions; the saplings were flourishing.

Gao Zhenlou, a 63-year-old farmer in Xilu Village of Shanting, also a dab hand at grape planting, told us the trial saplings were initially grown in his field. Heavy machinery left in his field today is evidence of the remarkable story of two German experts and Shanting folk.