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FARMentation
Winemaking at 3,000m above sea level, altitude shapes everything.
Yunnan sits at the western edge of China, where the Hengduan Mountains push vineyards to elevations most European growers would consider extreme between 2,000 and 3,000 metres above sea level. At these heights, the air is thinner, UV intensity is high, and the diurnal temperature swings between day and night can reach 20°C or more. For the vine, this is stress in the most productive sense: slow ripening, thicker skins, and a natural concentration that no winemaking trick can replicate.
Yuchen Luo founded FARMentation here not in spite of the difficulty, but because of it. The altitude doesn't just influence the grapes, it defines them.
FARMentation is built on two distinct lines. The Yunnan wines draw on Chardonnay and Syrah from the Deqin villages, grown at altitudes that strip away any softness those varieties carry elsewhere. The Chardonnay from these villages are presented in three styles, Medo with a classic oaked Chardonnay, More than white, early picked with skin contact and Jiangpo which shows the beauty of the terroir with its light touches of botrytis. The Syrah from Luwa is fine-boned and aromatic, sourced from vines first planted by Medo, an elderly Tibetan woman who was the first grower in her village to work with the variety.
The Renaissance line looks back into China's own wine history. Made with indigenous varieties including Black Muscat and Italian Riesling, these wines are approachable and modern in style, a revival of grapes that have long been overlooked.
They are Yuchen's way of saying that China's wine future and its wine past belong in the same conversation.
FARMentation was never just about making wine.
Many of the growers Yuchen works with are Tibetan, among them Medo, the elderly woman who first planted Syrah vines in Luwa village and whose name the wine now carries. This kind of relationship between a trained winemaker and the people who have farmed these slopes long before the wine world took notice is central to what FARMentation is.
FARMentation also works closely with younger growers, engaging the next generation of rural farmers at a time when high-altitude agricultural land is at risk of being abandoned altogether.
The cider, the perry, the Renaissance wines each one follows the same logic. Local fruit, local people, fermented honestly and at origin. FARMentation makes the case that the most interesting wines come from the most unlikely places, and that the people tending those places deserve to be part of the story.
Yunnan sits at the western edge of China, where the Hengduan Mountains push vineyards to elevations most European growers would consider extreme between 2,000 and 3,000 metres above sea level. At these heights, the air is thinner, UV intensity is high, and the diurnal temperature swings between day and night can reach 20°C or more. For the vine, this is stress in the most productive sense: slow ripening, thicker skins, and a natural concentration that no winemaking trick can replicate.
Yuchen Luo founded FARMentation here not in spite of the difficulty, but because of it. The altitude doesn't just influence the grapes, it defines them.
FARMentation is built on two distinct lines. The Yunnan wines draw on Chardonnay and Syrah from the Deqin villages, grown at altitudes that strip away any softness those varieties carry elsewhere. The Chardonnay from these villages are presented in three styles, Medo with a classic oaked Chardonnay, More than white, early picked with skin contact and Jiangpo which shows the beauty of the terroir with its light touches of botrytis. The Syrah from Luwa is fine-boned and aromatic, sourced from vines first planted by Medo, an elderly Tibetan woman who was the first grower in her village to work with the variety.
The Renaissance line looks back into China's own wine history. Made with indigenous varieties including Black Muscat and Italian Riesling, these wines are approachable and modern in style, a revival of grapes that have long been overlooked.
They are Yuchen's way of saying that China's wine future and its wine past belong in the same conversation.
FARMentation was never just about making wine.
Many of the growers Yuchen works with are Tibetan, among them Medo, the elderly woman who first planted Syrah vines in Luwa village and whose name the wine now carries. This kind of relationship between a trained winemaker and the people who have farmed these slopes long before the wine world took notice is central to what FARMentation is.
FARMentation also works closely with younger growers, engaging the next generation of rural farmers at a time when high-altitude agricultural land is at risk of being abandoned altogether.
The cider, the perry, the Renaissance wines each one follows the same logic. Local fruit, local people, fermented honestly and at origin. FARMentation makes the case that the most interesting wines come from the most unlikely places, and that the people tending those places deserve to be part of the story.
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