Shortly after their first vintage, the team assumed management of 0.44ha of Chardonnay vines in Xi-Da Village, quadrupling their volume and allowing them the opportunity to creatively blend parcels and make single-vineyard wines.

Like almost all producers in Yunnan, the team work closely with the vineyard’s Tibetan villagers year-round, spending half of the year on location guiding them through budburst, veraison, harvest, and pruning. Due to Yunnan’s isolating geography, they spend the rest of their time doing marketing and sales in Tier 1 cities.

By using regenerative agricultural practices such as reduce tillage, cover crops, and compost, Tinnyu stimulate soil regeneration, enrich biodiversity, optimise water cycles, aid carbon sequestration, and enhance the vineyard ecosystem to increase climate resilience. This helps maintain balance and reduces the need to use fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides.

With vintage experience at Bordeaux’s Château Olivier, Champagne, and China’s Ao Yun & Domaine Franco-Chinois between them, Leqi Liu & Yuxuan Qiu have found a very special corner of the world to make wine along the upper parts of the Mekong and Yangtze rivers.

Yunnan’s environment is unlike anywhere else on earth, and Tinnyu’s dedication to capturing the region’s unique character by working in the vineyard rather than the winery will continue to set them apart from their peers.