Gong is building a "wine town" alongside his winery, which he hopes will be a AAAA-level tourism site. (AAAAA is the highest national designation.) By offering classes about vini-culture and setting up a comfortable hotel, Gong hopes tourists will stay longer at his vineyard and learn more about his wine.

"Each day we have to limit the number of tourists visiting our winery to around 200, because more people in the wine cellar could affect the temperature and quality of our wine," says Gong.

Most wineries in the eastern foothills region also operate as tourism sites.

The region is now working with a cruise company to build a winery on a ship, as well as a train.

The Ningxia wine region was included in The New York Times' "46 Places To Go" list in 2013, as "the local government has reclaimed desert-like expanses, irrigated them profusely, planted them with cabernet sauvignon and merlot and started a campaign to transform this rugged backwater into China's answer to Bordeaux".

So now, for the price of a train ticket, wine lovers can embark on an odyssey of discovery-sampling the tastes of Ningxia's wine country along the way-to take in the European style of Chateau Changyu Moser XV or the traditional Chinese desert architecture of Yuanshi Vineyard.

Contact the writer at liyingxue@chinadaily.com.cn