Winemaker harvesting fermented fruits of labor

When Emma Gao went to Bordeaux, France, to study winemaking in 1999, the wine industry in her hometown in the Ningxia Hui autonomous region had not yet truly taken root.

Her father had given her a taste for the wine industry. A small-scale operator in his own right, he had gone to France in the 1990s to get a better understanding of the craft.

On his return he persuaded his daughter to also go to France and study the art of winemaking. Now that she's back, she and her father expanded their vineyard and business grew.