Cizhong & Rose Honey: A Church, a Grape, One Hundred and Sixty Years

One Church, One Grape, 160 Years

From Deqin county seat, you go south through Yanmen township, then onto a narrow road clinging to the Lancang River. About sixty kilometers later, you arrive at Cizhong village.

It is small. 236 households, just over a thousand residents, seven ethnic groups living together, Tibetan in the majority, alongside Lisu, Yi, Naxi, Bai, Nu, and Han. At the entrance to the village stands a church. A French bell tower carries a Chinese pavilion on top. Inside, the ceiling is painted with blue-ground florals and Daoist motifs; lotus flowers from Buddhist iconography sit on the railings. The fourteen Stations of the Cross hang on the walls, captioned in Chinese.

The church is called the Église du Sacré-Cœur de Tsedjrong, Sacred Heart of Cizhong. National Key Cultural Heritage site. A Sunday Mass is still celebrated, with a resident priest. In the front courtyard grow a handful of old vines.

Those vines are the subject of this chapter.

The Missionaries: Père Dubernard and His Grapes

The story begins with a French missionary society.

The Missions Étrangères de Paris (MEP), Paris Foreign Missions Society, is a French Catholic body specializing in Asia. In the mid-nineteenth century, MEP missionaries pushed up from the Burma–Yunnan border into northwest Yunnan, following the Lancang gorge northward and founding parishes among Tibetan, Naxi, and Lisu villages.

They brought Bibles, crosses, and grape vines.

Mass requires sacramental wine. Sacramental wine has to be from grapes. In the nineteenth-century Lancang gorge, you could not buy grape wine, you grew it and made it yourself. So the missionaries brought French varieties, planted them in church courtyards, and taught the locals to make wine.

The timeline runs roughly as follows.

Around 1865, the missionary Père Jules Dubernard arrived in the upper Lancang area. In 1867 he built the first church in Tsekou (Cigu) village, about fifteen kilometers south of Cizhong. The first vines and the first winemaking probably arrived around this time.

Dubernard spent nearly forty years in Tsekou. He learned Tibetan, compiled a Tibetan–French dictionary, and was close to the villagers. But across a wider region, tensions between foreign religion and local belief never went away.

In 1905, the Weixi anti-Christian incident broke out. The trigger was the aftermath of the Batang massacre. Anti-foreign-religion sentiment surged across Tibetan areas, and crowds burned down ten churches along the Lancang and Nu rivers. Dubernard and another priest, Père Bourdonnec, were killed.

The French archives describe Dubernard’s death in language difficult to read closely: bound to a post, tortured for three days.

The mission did not end.

In 1909, the missionary Père Jean-Théodore Monbeig moved the parish from the ruined Tsekou to Cizhong and began rebuilding. He spent two years putting up the church that stands today. The consecration was held on Epiphany 1911. Monbeig himself did not live out a peaceful life: on 12 June 1914, on the road to Litang, he was killed in a Tibetan-rebel attack.

From 1914 to 1952, the church continued to function. The vineyards around it kept producing. In 1952, the new Chinese government expelled the last of the missionaries.

The vines stayed.

The Cultural Revolution, a Schoolhouse, and Vines That Survived

For fourteen years after 1952, the Catholic community at Cizhong maintained the church and the vineyard. Mass continued. Sacramental wine was still made. About six hundred vines kept growing without professional management.

In 1966, the Cultural Revolution began. The church was requisitioned as a school.

In that moment, this was a loss, religious activity banned, the building’s function stripped away. From a historical angle, though, it accidentally preserved the building. A villager later remembered: “If it hadn’t been used as a classroom, the church might have been torn down.”

In the same period, countless churches, temples, and ancestral halls across China were demolished. Cizhong’s church survived because it was useful. The children needed a classroom.

The vines also survived. No one was tending them. But they were hybrid plants, far more resistant than pure Vitis vinifera. The high-altitude isolated environment also avoided most pests and diseases. Across roughly thirty unsupervised years, from the 1952 expulsion to renewed attention in the 1980s, these vines held on by themselves.

In the 1980s, religious-affairs policy relaxed. The church returned to the Catholic community. Agronomists came to Cizhong, examined the old vines in the church courtyard, and concluded that one of the varieties was Rose Honey, a French grape thought to be extinct in France.

That name has been Cizhong’s largest label ever since.

The Mystery of Rose Honey

One Grape, Several Stories

Rose Honey (玫瑰蜜, also Miel de Rose) is a red grape. Small berries, deep color. The wine is ruby red, with distinctive rose-petal and honey aromas, which is where the name comes from. Meininger’s tasting note: “One sniff and you know how it got its name: rose and honey.”

But what this grape actually is has no settled answer.

Theory 1: An old French variety, extinct in France. The 1980s Chinese agronomists’ conclusion. Chinese-language media and tourism material run with it: the world’s only surviving population is in Cizhong. If true, this is almost a living fossil of the wine world.

Theory 2: It might be Baco Noir. The international grape specialist Ian D’Agata, writing in TerroirSense Wine Review, has pointed out that Baco Noir is locally called Rose Honey, but “the DNA test results are not definitive.” Xiaoling Estate’s owner Bertrand Cristau uses the name Baco Noir; on Vivino and CellarTracker, Xiaoling’s Cizhong-sourced labels carry Baco Noir. The French wine critic outlet Bettane + Desseauve has also used the variety name (in their text spelled, oddly, Bacot Noir).

Baco Noir was bred in 1894 by the French breeder François Baco from Folle Blanche and Vitis riparia. There is a timeline problem: Dubernard planted grapes at Tsekou in 1867, while Baco Noir was not bred until 1894. If the original Cizhong vines were Baco Noir, the dates do not work.

A possible explanation: the original variety was something else, and Baco Noir was reintroduced by later missionaries between roughly 1900 and the 1952 expulsion. Or the two varieties later became co-planted and the name Rose Honey now covers both.

Theory 3: A natural Vitis vinifera × Vitis labrusca hybrid. Chinese viticulturists have argued the grape may be a spontaneous cross between Eurasian and American species. The slightly foxy or musky notes you can detect when tasting are a labrusca signature. But labrusca and riparia are two different American species; that is inconsistent with Baco Noir’s parentage.

Theory 4: It may be more than one variety. D’Agata notes specifically: “Rose Honey is a name used for one and possibly two other distinct varieties in China.” The Rose Honey of Cizhong, the one of Mile, and the one elsewhere may not be the same grape at all.

What the DNA Tests Say

Tests have been done. The result: inconclusive.

The vines are described as containing “at least partial vinifera DNA, hybridized with other unidentified species,” but “the certain origin remains unknown.” In plain language: we can confirm it is not pure Vitis vinifera. We cannot confirm what it actually is.

A detail worth noting: Jancis Robinson, Julia Harding, and José Vouillamoz’s Wine Grapes (2012), currently the most comprehensive varietal reference, covering 1,368 grapes, does not seem to include Rose Honey. This might be a data gap, or it might be that Rose Honey has been classified as a synonym of a known variety.

If It Is Baco Noir, It Is Not Extinct

This is a logically important point that gets rarely raised.

If Cizhong’s Rose Honey is actually Baco Noir, then the claim “the only surviving population in the world” does not hold. Baco Noir is widely planted in North America, Ontario, Canada and the Finger Lakes in New York are significant producers. It is not authorized in French AOC, but it is not extinct.

What may actually be extinct is something else: the variety Dubernard originally brought in 1867, whatever its name was. It may have been replaced by Baco Noir introduced later. The two may be co-planted now, with genetic boundaries blurred.

My own reading: the identity question is itself the story. It does not need a definite answer. A hundred and sixty years of history, two missionaries murdered, a Cultural Revolution, an accidental preservation, these facts carry more force than any DNA report. Whatever these vines are scientifically called, they have been alive at Cizhong for a hundred and sixty years. That alone is extraordinary.

From Mass Wine to Commodity: Cizhong’s Wine Today

The Villagers Making Wine

In 1997, a Cizhong villager named Wu Gongdi learned traditional French winemaking from his aunt, who had served at the church. He named his wine Cizhou, the ancient name of Cizhong.

The method is simple. Harvest ripe Rose Honey and Cabernet Sauvignon in autumn, remove leaves and stems, crush in a large vessel with a wooden mallet, add sugar (5 kg sugar per 50 kg grapes), seal, ferment. The wine comes out deep red and sweet, with an alcohol range that runs anywhere from 10% to 20% depending on the maker.

Wu Gongdi’s son Wu Hongxing has continued the family business, running a small shop beside the church that sells wine and offers travel guiding. Hongxing Winery is also one of Cizhong’s markers, founded in 1997, it is one of the longest-running estates in the area. Hongxing is a practicing Catholic; part of his production goes to the church for Mass. He is also an outdoor expedition guide. Annual output around 2,000 bottles.

Nearly every household in Cizhong now owns winemaking equipment. The shift from sacramental wine to commercial wine has happened in the past two decades. French-style wine sells at the village for about $5 per liter. Some households now earn up to RMB 70,000 a year from it.

Xiaoling at Cizhong

Bertrand Cristau, the owner of Xiaoling, inherited the Cizhong church vineyard.

Cristau is French, from the Bouchard family of Burgundy, and has lived in China for forty years. He describes making wine at Cizhong, following the steps of the nineteenth-century missionaries, as a kind of destiny. He continues to make wine from the old church vines and operates additional parcels across Deqin.

On Xiaoling’s labels, the variety is identified as Baco Noir. D’Agata tasted Xiaoling’s 2022 rosé: medium-deep pink, distinct green-pepper, raspberry and red cherry, a touch of wildness on the finish. 87 points. Not a grand wine, but identifiably itself.

Songtsam Cizhong

The Songtsam hotel group reopened its Cizhong property in 2024 after renovation. Expanded from ten rooms to twenty-six, positioned as Songtsam’s first wine-estate-themed hotel. The property produces its own Chardonnay.

Songtsam’s entry is a step-change in Cizhong’s tourism infrastructure. Before this, the village had about twenty-five guesthouses and twenty farm-stays, with combined daily capacity around three hundred. Songtsam brings a different tier of clientele and international visibility.

The French Ambassador’s Visit

On 8–9 October 2025, France’s ambassador to China, Bertrand Lortholary, visited Cizhong.

He toured the church, then Xiaoling, then Ao Yun. The official communiqué from the French Embassy used the French phrasing: Déplacement de l’Ambassadeur au Yunnan.

A hundred and sixty years ago, French missionaries planted grapes here. The missionaries were killed. The church was destroyed and rebuilt. The government changed. Sacramental wine became commercial wine. In 2025, a French ambassador came to come home.

Sometimes the archive is more dramatic than the story.

A Question That Does Not Need an Answer

About Rose Honey, some things are clear.

It was brought to the Lancang gorge by nineteenth-century French missionaries (at least one of the varieties was).
It has survived in Cizhong for at least 150 years.
It does not exist in France any longer, whatever its actual identity is.
DNA testing still cannot give a definitive identification.
The wine has distinctive rose and honey aromas.

Some things are not clear.

Is it an independent old French variety, or Baco Noir, or some unknown natural hybrid?
Are the vines Dubernard planted in 1867 the same plants now in the church courtyard?
Does Rose Honey in different regions refer to the same grape at all?

I lean toward this view: the answers to these questions matter less than the questions themselves.

A French missionary brought a vine to the Lancang gorge a hundred and sixty years ago and planted it in front of a church. The missionary was killed. The church was burned and rebuilt. The Cultural Revolution came; the church became a classroom and was therefore not torn down. Without anyone tending them, the vines lived. Now a Frenchman makes wine here using Burgundian methods; a Swiss man ages it in amphorae nearby; the Catholic villagers use it for Mass wine; the Songtsam hotel uses it as a brand story; the French ambassador comes to visit.

Does its name really matter?

PLACEHOLDER:hero-cizhong at the top. PLACEHOLDER:photo-rose-honey-vines inside §3, the old vines in the church courtyard. PLACEHOLDER:photo-church-interior inside §1, the bilingual interior with Daoist and Buddhist motifs. PLACEHOLDER:archive-image-dubernard inside §2, Dubernard or other MEP archive photograph if available.