THE vines are weighed down with grapes and the local wines are sweetish but surprisingly tasty, and the dry desert soil around Turpan produces serviceable cabernet sauvignon and riesling grapes.

Tea, beer, rice wine and grain alcohol may have been the traditional tipples of choice in China, but grapes to make wine have been grown along this part of the Northern Silk Road for more than 2,000 years, and are making a comeback.

Domestic wineries are gearing up to put China's name on the map of wine culture, helped by experts from home and abroad.

So get ready for a chardonnay from Huadong, a cabernet from Changyu or a dragon's seal from Beijing. Or how about a smooth cabernet sauvignon from Xinjiang?

Discerning

Only a decade ago, China had some 240 wineries, but more than 100 new vineyards have been set up since then. Most of them are small or medium-sized, and they are trying to produce better wines to appeal to increasingly discerning tastes in China and abroad.

The region is famous for its fruit, and the government reintroduced vines in Xinjiang in 1950, primarily for raisins and grapes for eating, but rising incomes and growing snob value for wine have given the domestic industry a boost. The Bodega Langes vineyard was set up in 1999 by Gernot Langes-Swarovski, of the Austrian crystal family of the same name.

A 200-hectare vineyard in Changli, 150 miles east of Beijing near the coast in Shandong province, the Bodega Langes includes a hotel, restaurant, wine school and China's first vino-therapy spa, which uses grape skins and the oil from pressed grapes to pamper the body. "The wine business has grown 10-15pc annually in the last five years. And this development will be even quicker in coming years," said Bodega Langes' spokesman, Ren Jiang.

Bodega's first vintage was in 2001 - a year earlier than expected because the grape quality was so good - and it now produces about 1.3 million bottles a year.

This is a far cry from the early days of wine production in China during the 1980s, when the government decided to plant vines as part of an effort to reduce the use of cereals for alcohol production.

Not much thought was given to what to do with the wine produced, and vines were considered a form of production just like any other. In volume terms, China is already the leading consumer of wine in Asia - 3.9 million hectolitres, or over half a billion bottles in 2004. Almost 95pc of the wine drunk in China is domestically produced, but foreign exporters are working fast to make headway.