4-Day Ningxia Wine and Water: Helan Foothill Wineries and Shahu Lake

Morning - arrival
Yinchuan sits on the flat plain between the Helan Mountains and the Yellow River, at about 1,100 metres, and it is the greenest city for a thousand kilometres in any direction. That is not a natural accident: the plain is irrigated by a canal system that was dug under the Han dynasty and has been maintained, on and off, for two thousand years. Your guide meets you at the airport or the railway station and drives you into the city.

The Ningxia Museum
The provincial museum is the right place to start, because it explains what you are about to look at. The collection runs from the Palaeolithic sites of Shuidonggou through the Tang and Song into the Western Xia - the Tangut kingdom that ruled here from 1038 until the Mongols extinguished it in 1227 - and out along the Silk Road. The Western Xia galleries hold Buddhist sutras, Tangut script, seals, ceramics and the stonework recovered from the imperial tombs, and there is a fine collection of the carved stone steles that the Tangut left behind. Admission is free and pre-booking is required; your guide handles it.

Lunch
Ningxia cooking is Hui cooking: lamb above all, noodles, and a restrained hand with chilli. Your guide orders hand-grabbed mutton, a bowl of lamb soup with pulled noodles, and a plate of the local cold vegetable dishes. A mild table is arranged alongside.

Afternoon - Haibao Pagoda
North of the old city, in a walled courtyard of its own, stands the Haibao Pagoda - a square brick tower of eleven storeys, about fifty-four metres tall, tapering slightly as it rises, with arched niches on each face and no eaves at all. Its present form is a Qing reconstruction of a much older building, traditionally dated to the fifth century, and it is one of the oldest structures standing in the city. The climb to the top platform is steep and narrow and gives you the whole of Yinchuan: the plain, the canals, the mountains closing the western horizon.

Evening
Dinner at a local restaurant. If you have the energy, the guide can walk you through the drum tower area afterwards, which is livelier after dark than it looks by day.

Meals
Lunch, Dinner

Accommodation
Overnight at a 4-star or equivalent hotel in Yinchuan, twin share, with daily breakfast.

Morning - why here
The eastern foot of the Helan Mountains sits between 37 and 39 degrees north, at about 1,100 metres, on a series of gravel fans that the mountain has shed onto the plain over millennia. The growing season is hot and dry, with three hundred days of sun, a large diurnal swing, and almost no rain during ripening - which means disease pressure is low and the fruit arrives clean. The mountain also shelters the strip from the worst of the north-west wind. It is, by common consent among Chinese winemakers, the best red-wine ground in the country.

The district is young. The first serious estates were planted in the 1990s and the quality jump came after 2010; today there are more than two hundred producers, and Helan Mountain wines have taken medals and high scores in international competition with increasing regularity. Cabernet Gernischt - Carmenere - is the local signature grape, alongside Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Syrah and Marselan.

The first estate
The morning is at a mid-sized working estate: the vineyard rows on the gravel, the gravity-fed winery, the barrel hall. You walk the vines with someone from the winemaking team rather than a tour guide, and taste through the range - a white, the entry red, and one or two of the reserve wines. This is the part people remember: the wines are good, and the setting, with the mountain directly behind the trellis, is not like any other wine region.

Lunch
Lunch at the estate restaurant, cooked to go with the wine - lamb, mushrooms, root vegetables, and the local bread. A non-drinking option is available for anyone driving or abstaining.

Afternoon - the second estate
The afternoon is at a second, larger property with a different philosophy - a chateau-scale building, a formal cellar door, a wider range including a sweet wine and a sparkling. The two visits together are the point: they show you that this is not a curiosity but an industry with arguments inside it.

Evening
Return to Yinchuan for dinner. Wine can be bought at the estates and carried; the guide will help with packing for the flight.

Meals
Lunch, Dinner

Accommodation
Overnight at a 4-star or equivalent hotel in Yinchuan, twin share, with daily breakfast.

Morning - the lake
Shahu lies about fifty kilometres north of Yinchuan, on the edge of the Yinchuan plain where the irrigation water pools before the ground rises toward the Ordos. It is an odd, beautiful place: some forty-five square kilometres of open water and reed marsh, with sand dunes running straight down into the eastern shore, so that you can stand in one spot and look at reeds, water and desert in a single sweep.

A boat takes you out through the reed channels. The reeds stand three to four metres high and the channels are cut through them, so the passage is close and green, opening without warning onto open water. This is the best part of the day and worth taking slowly.

Birds
The wetland sits on the East Asian-Australasian flyway and is a stopover for migratory waterbirds; more than two hundred species have been recorded, and the reserve is a protected breeding site for several of them. Spring and autumn passage is the richest, but herons, egrets, grebes and reed warblers are present through the season, and the lake holds a resident population of the rare Relict Gull in winter. Bring binoculars if you have them; the guide carries a scope.

Lunch
Lunch at a lakeside restaurant, and the fish is the reason to eat here: the lake is stocked with bighead and grass carp, and the local method is to steam the whole fish with scallion and ginger. A mild table is arranged alongside.

Afternoon
The afternoon is on the dune shore and the boardwalks on the eastern side, where the sand meets the water and the walking is easy. Camel rides, sand sledding and a small bird park are on offer at the entrance area; all of these are optional and payable on the spot. If the group would rather have a quiet hour, the northern shore has benches and shade and no one on it.

Evening
Return to Yinchuan for dinner.

Meals
Lunch, Dinner

Accommodation
Overnight at a 4-star or equivalent hotel in Yinchuan, twin share, with daily breakfast.

Morning - at leisure
The morning is left free. Depending on the departure time there is room for a last walk in the old city, for the Ningxia Museum if you did not see it on the first day, or simply for a slow breakfast and re-packing. Your guide confirms the departure time the evening before and builds the morning around it.

Transfer out
Hedong International Airport lies about twenty kilometres south-east of the city, on the far side of the Yellow River; allow forty minutes. Yinchuan railway station is on the western edge of the city, twenty minutes from the centre, and runs high-speed services to Xi'an, Lanzhou and Beijing. A vehicle and driver take you and your luggage straight to the terminal, and the guide walks you in as far as the entry check.

Onward
If your flight leaves late, a half-day of sightseeing can be added before the transfer - the Western Xia tombs or the Helan Mountain rock art are both close to the airport road - and a day room can be kept at the hotel on request.

Meals
Breakfast

Accommodation
No hotel night included - onward flight or train. A further night in Yinchuan can be added on request.