A German winemaker is following in his grandfather's footsteps, having inherited the mission of helping local farmers in Shandong province grow grapes and make world-class wines, He Dan discovers.

When he arrived at the Norbert-Hans Vineyard on May 31, vintner Marc Linden began with a thorough examination of the devices in the winemaking workshop before demonstrating grafting techniques in the fields. Despite all the work he needed to do at the family vinery, Sonnenberg in Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler, Linden flew from Germany to China in late May after he received a request for help from his grandfather's old friends at the vineyard in Zaozhuang, Shandong province.

Linden took over the family's winemaking business after his grandfather Norbert Gorres passed away in 2009 at the age of 75. But as well as the business, Linden also inherited his grandfather's mission of helping the local farmers in Zaozhuang grow grapes and make world-class wines.

"Grandpa devoted a lot of time and energy to this land and I am happy to realize his unfulfilled wish of helping the local farmers live a better life by mastering winemaking skills to European standards," he says.

His grandfather became involved, after the Zaozhuang city government requested a foreign expert be found willing to develop a local winemaking industry from scratch. The State Administration of Foreign Experts Affairs, China's top governmental agency for overseas headhunting, invited Gorres to help.

Gorres, a member of the Senior Experten Service, a nonprofit organization in Germany that offers retired experts opportunities to pass on their skills and knowledge to those in need both at home and abroad, used to visit Shandong province twice a year between 2000 to 2009 with his assistant Hans Beu, and they would share their grape cultivation and grafting knowledge with the local farmers.

On his first trip to Zaozhuang, Gorres packed more than 10,000 European fruit seedlings including 70-plus varieties of grape, which resulted in a fine of about 30,000 yuan ($4,786) for overweight luggage, recalls Ning Yanmin, a translator who worked with Gorres and who is now working with Linden in China.

"I have never met someone as selfless and noble as Norbert," says Ning, adding the expert was always trying to bring advanced equipment, tools and seedlings as gifts for the local farmers, as many as possible regardless of the cost and the weight of his luggage.

"He told me that he knew there are tens of millions of migrant workers that have to leave their hometown and their families to make more money in the cities; he wanted to teach the farmers to grow grapes and make wine so that they could make a living, enjoy life and protect the environment at the same time," she says.

Yu Tingbo, 70, chief director of grape cultivation at the Nobert-Hans Vineyard, learned the skills of grape growing from the two German experts. He was impressed by that fact that they were very strict and precise in every step of the growing process and "treated the grapes as their own children".

"They were patient in answering all questions that farmers raised, even though some were very slow to digest new knowledge, and they worked around the clock on the farmland with the local farmers and ate the same food as the locals did with no complaint, even though Hans had cancer," Yu says.

As the local farmers had never grown grapes for wine-making before the arrival of the Gorres and Beu, it was a difficult task persuading them to change their way of doing things to guarantee the quality of the rest.

"Norbert explained the idea behind it with plain language, he said it takes 10 years of good care before a grape seedling can produce good grapes, just like you cannot force a woman to have babies all the time, otherwise it will destroy the mother's health and dilute the limited resources available to raise the children," Yu says.

Wang Yunxiang, general manager of the Hanro Winery Co. Ltd that runs the vineyard, said farmers who were hired by the company to grow grapes for wine can get a net income that is double what they would get from growing other crops.

"The German experts' help have brought prosperity to our company and farmers," Wang says.

Beu's health deteriorated in 2007, but before he died, he asked Gorres to bring his last donation of 2,000 yuan to two poor students in Zaozhuang, whose schooling he had been supporting.

Contact the writer at hedan@chinadaily.com.cn

Marc Linden demonstrates grafting techniques at the Norbert-Hans Vineyard, which was co-started by his grandfather Norbert Gorres and Hans Beu who wanted to pass on their grape-growing knowledge. Provided to China Daily

(China Daily 06/29/2014 page5)