Domujiu: Riesling on a Tibetan Mountain at 2,800 Meters
At the Top of Yujie Village
Section titled “At the Top of Yujie Village”On 18 June 2025, I drove up the Jinsha River into Benzilan town, then on to Yujie village.
The village sits at the top of a hill. Fourteen households. I had not expected it to be that small. Walking up from the entrance, near the highest point I came to a restored old Tibetan house. The beams were still original, the roof tiles new, the corner stove still working, the door with old butter marks. Lu Yijing said: “The shape of the door, the curve, it was made to let butter and tea through.”
Just outside the door is the vineyard. Roughly two and a half hectares, mostly white grapes, Riesling and Chardonnay. Elevation above 2,800 meters.
This was the first stop at Domujiu and the moment that left the deepest impression on me from the entire Shangri-La region. Not because of the wine, the wine has not been released, but because of a feeling: an old house that was about to collapse has been slowly restored. A village that was about to disperse now has a different possibility because of vines.
Lu Yijing
Section titled “Lu Yijing”Lu Yijing is not formally trained in winemaking.
In 2020 she partnered with the winemaker Quan Shiping to found Zaxee Walnut Tree Winery in the Jinsha River valley, near Benzilan. The brand built quickly, Big Zaxee and Little Zaxee, two product lines, made it onto the wine lists of Songtsam, LUX*, Linden Centre, and other top regional hotel brands. For a new estate, the distribution build-out was fast.
But in 2023, she left Zaxee.
She has not said much about why. After leaving, she came to Yujie village, more remote, higher, quieter than Benzilan, and started from zero. She restored a Tibetan house that had been abandoned for over a decade. She talked to every household, one by one, persuading them to plant grapes. For the first two years she paid the villagers herself, even if only a few thousand yuan a year, to let them try this thing.
Domujiu is the estate name. Duomu in Tibetan means first, and can also mean pine cone. Lu says: “People ask if the name has some deep meaning. There is no story. No grand poetry. But say it out loud, domu, domu, doesn’t it have a kind of playfulness? That is enough.”
The person who made the strongest impression on me on that trip was Tsmu.
She is from Yujie village. She finished middle school, married locally, is in her thirties. She has been working with Lu since the Zaxee days, seven or eight years now.
Lu said something deliberate: “She is the one I am cultivating to become the best female winemaker in the Tibetan region.”
Tsmu has limited formal education, but she learns quickly. The basics of tasting and vinification, a single explanation is enough. Lu says Tsmu has “a natural perception of flavor and place”, not the kind that can be taught.
I asked Tsmu: “What do you feel you are, in the estate?”
She thought for a moment. She answered in Tibetan first, then translated: “I am this place’s gatekeeper.”
Then she laughed.
A Tibetan woman winemaker being trained at 2,800 meters in a village of fourteen households. A middle-school graduate who has followed an outsider Han woman across regions for nearly a decade. In Burgundy or Napa her story would be made into a documentary. In Yujie, it is the everyday.
Riesling at 2,800 Meters
Section titled “Riesling at 2,800 Meters”Why did Lu choose Yujie?
“It wasn’t the original plan. I was traveling, looked up at this place, and suddenly thought, if Riesling grew here, it would be different.”
The different is still being verified. Two and a half hectares of vines, mostly Riesling and Chardonnay. The 2025 wines have not been released. The day I visited, I had a glass of an experimental new Riesling in the courtyard.
I am not, strictly, in a position to evaluate an unreleased wine in this book. But the impression that day was: light, crisp, with a kind of clean I have not tasted elsewhere. It may also be that 2,800 meters of air and light amplifies everything you taste.
Riesling has very few precedents in China. Kanaan in Ningxia has had real success. But at nearly 3,000 meters there is almost no global reference. Riesling in Alsace sits at 300–400 meters, in the Mosel even lower. Even Argentina’s Salta, home to some of the world’s highest commercial vineyards, does not feature Riesling as a primary variety.
Lu is running an experiment with no precedent. The result might be excellent. It might be uncertain. But uncertain, in a wine world built on certainty, is itself a kind of attraction.
Not Only Wine
Section titled “Not Only Wine”The more I talked with Lu, the more I noticed that selling wine did not seem to be her central interest.
“Wine is just a symbol. The estate has other symbols too, the export of local culture, the extension of personal brand and value. Beyond the concept of wine, the people we want to serve, the friendships and emotional alignment we want to build.”
This is not a business model. It is closer to a life choice.
The estate has three guest rooms, not yet open to the public. “I want to keep it slow. First host friends, or take people for a walk on the mountain, look at the clouds and fog.”
Two kilometers downhill is the newly opened Linden Centre Benzilan. The two owners know each other. They have spoken about future collaboration. “The two estates have a similar temperament. Both stubborn people.”
Profit? “What this will look like in ten years, I don’t know. What I know is that I like what I’m doing now, I like the vines we’ve planted, I like the relationship we are slowly building with the village.”
Said by a typical business operator, the words would feel like PR. Said by a person who has spent considerable money restoring an old Tibetan house in a fourteen-household village at 2,800 meters, while training a middle-school-educated Tibetan woman to be a winemaker, you tend to believe it.
From Zaxee to Domujiu
Section titled “From Zaxee to Domujiu”Lu’s previous project, Zaxee Walnut Tree, was co-founded with the winemaker Quan Shiping. Quan’s style has identity in the region: native yeast, amphora, extended skin contact, lees aging. Zaxee built a tasting facility with structure, by-appointment only. The wine-media outlet Sommelier Pictorial described the wines as “very drinkable.”
The difference between Zaxee and Domujiu is the difference between brand and individual. Zaxee is a brand with product lines, distribution strategy, design polish. Domujiu is the relationship between one person and one village, more private, less replicable, also more fragile.
Neither path is inherently better commercially. But in a book about places and the people who serve them, Domujiu is harder to substitute.
”What You Chase Runs Away”
Section titled “”What You Chase Runs Away””As I left Yujie, Lu said something I have kept in my head:
“What you chase, you cannot catch while it is running. The faster you chase, the faster it runs.”
The wind moved through the vines. Sometimes you do not need much meaning. Interesting and worth doing are enough.
PLACEHOLDER:hero-domujiu at the top. PLACEHOLDER:portrait-tsmu inside §3, Tsmu in the vineyard. PLACEHOLDER:photo-restored-house inside §1, before/after of the restored Tibetan house.