From September 29 to October 1, the Fourth Deqin Meri Wine Region Promotion was held at the Feilai Temple viewpoint in Deqin. This was the second visit to Meri for a reporter from China Wine News. Facing Meili Snow Mountain once again, the intense sunlight and cool gusts brought by high altitude rushed forward—conditions not only felt by people but experienced by the local grapes as well.

Notably, the event fell right after the Mid-Autumn Festival and before National Day. Many could have taken early leave or traveled off-peak, yet still made the trip specifically to the region. Foreign guests also outnumbered last year's. A region being seen by the world often begins at moments like this: people willing to come, willing to listen, and willing to tell others about the wine here.

From a one-county industry to a cluster of boutique wineries

Meri's industrial foundation comes first from clear positioning and long-term commitment. Song Qingyun, Party Secretary of Deqin County, noted that Deqin lies in the core area of the Three Parallel Rivers World Natural Heritage site. The Lancang and Jinsha rivers and the dry-hot valleys create a unique terroir for Meri: low latitude, high altitude, strong sunshine, large day-night temperature differences, and snowmelt irrigation. It is widely recognized as a highland boutique wine region. Over more than a century, grape growing and winemaking have taken root here. Over the past two decades, Meri has traveled a path from scattered trial planting to region formation, from extensive cultivation to boutique high-end production, and from individual efforts to cluster development.

In 2000, Deqin launched its grape industry development plan; in 2023, it pushed industrial transformation and upgrading. Anchored in a niche, boutique, high-end positioning, the county made the grape industry its "one-county industry." During the 14th Five-Year Plan period, Deqin's wine industry output reached about 1.5 billion yuan, benefiting nearly 2,800 households. A small grape has become a fruit of prosperity, and once-barren valley slopes are turning into treasure bowls.

Professor Zhan Jicheng of China Agricultural University traced Meri's modern wine history through four milestones. In 1866, French missionaries arrived in western Yunnan; the Cizhong church, rebuilt in 1907, still has its original vineyard. In 2000, Deqin launched large-scale wine industry development and introduced Shangri-La Winery. In 2013, Deqin brought in LVMH to build Ao Yun in partnership with Shangri-La, and Ao Yun's wines earned international acclaim, proving Deqin could produce world-class wine. Around 2020, new brands such as Xiaoling, Muqin, and Mingyi emerged, forming a diverse cluster. Today, 15 Meri wines were selected for the 2025 China Top 100 Wines list, and brands like Ao Yun and Shengyu have won over 100 domestic and international awards.

Deqin now has 7,200 mu of standardized wine grape base, including over 4,000 mu certified organic, producing 4,700 tons of quality grapes annually. The region has cultivated six high-end wine enterprises and built 24 boutique wineries. It has been listed in the national catalog of famous, special, and new agricultural products and awarded a China geographical indication certification trademark.

From terroir advantage to regional expression

Associate Professor Wang Yanjun of Chuxiong Normal University analyzed Meri's terroir across climate, geography, and soil: long frost-free periods, long growing seasons, abundant sunshine, high effective accumulated temperature, large temperature swings, low humidity, few fungal diseases, slow ripening, and nutrient-rich fruit; dramatic elevation changes, many suitable varieties, scattered plots, and limited disease spread; gravelly sandy loam soils rich in organic matter, deep, permeable, and mineral-rich. She called these "golden terroir conditions" for wine, and noted that Meri's extreme landscapes and world-class IP—the Three Parallel Rivers heritage site, Kawagarbo peak, Mingyong Glacier, the great canyons, Yubeng, and terraced vineyards in dry-hot valleys—make the "snow mountain plus wine" scene globally unique.

If terroir explains Meri's confidence, a wine must also be tasted, discussed, and remembered—which requires another language. Veteran critic Liu Jiayin observed that wine is a rare borderless language: French wine tastes of minerals, Australian wine of sunshine, Chinese wine of mountains and rivers—and Meri's wine fuses them all. Meri wines are upright and three-dimensional, with minerality, purity, and a piercing tension unmatched elsewhere. On the same mountain, different altitudes, slope aspects, and villages yield wines with entirely different souls.

Yet for a region to be continuously seen, it must answer a deeper question: why can this wine only come from here? Regional consultant Wang Zhao pushed the discussion from terroir to place. She argued that Meri's value comes from both terroir and place—natural conditions, craft exploration, mountain landscapes, and local culture together form the brand foundation. Place includes natural environment, living practices, social relations, cultural meaning, and historical memory. Local festivals, weddings, funerals, and seasonal activities like digging cordyceps and mushrooms shape the farming calendar vineyards must respect; villagers' understanding of land and season enters the wine. Culture thus settles into real, tangible experience village by village.

Meri's wine tourism should use landscapes, physical sensation, and concrete village life as carriers, placing wine within visible terroir so its taste becomes vivid experience and memory. Terroir is Meri's natural foundation; place gives it human warmth and cultural depth. By integrating village life, farming rhythms, and intangible heritage festivals into wine tourism, Meri lets locals be not just labor but co-builders of terroir narrative and brand value—creating competitiveness that is harder to replicate.

The world has already seen Meri's snow mountains, awards, and pioneering wineries. What deserves to be seen more is the rhythm of village life beneath the snow, the way farming seasons and local culture enter the vineyard, and the long-termism of locals as co-builders of terroir. Being seen is the beginning; being continuously seen is Meri's true confidence in going global.