Others plant bamboo, he plants wine - sold by the mu and still can't meet demand
Original title: Wu Jing: The "wine-planting" guy of Liuyang
On November 15, Wu Jing (right) and a "wine-planting" technician harvest bamboo-tube wine together.
Other people's wine is brewed; his wine is "planted." Other people's wine is sold by the bottle; his wine is sold by the "mu." A member of the post-80s generation who once sold only world-class red wines like Latour and Lafite has now returned to his hometown and, amid vast seas of bamboo, launched an agricultural technology venture involving bamboo and wine.
"Our bamboo-tube wine is not only sold by the tube, but also by the mu. Besides the wine, we also include bamboo forest by-products in the package."
Maker's motto:
When you're riding high, don't get carried away - always leave yourself time to think, and keep learning. Conversely, when things go badly, don't lose heart either.
-- Wu Jing
Following a babbling brook and pushing through dense bamboo groves, a group climbs the mountain carrying saws, heading off to harvest wine.
The wine is right there inside the culms of these tall, straight nan bamboo.
Sorghum liquor infused with Chinese medicinal herbs is "planted" into the bamboo cavities using minimally invasive high-pressure injection technology, then sealed. The wine grows along with the bamboo for a year or so, absorbing the essence of heaven and earth, and what is harvested is a bamboo-tube wine unique in all the world. On November 15, the reporter followed Wu Jing, general manager of Hunan Shengshi Hongqiang Agricultural Technology Development Co., Ltd., to Tianxi Village, Zhangfang Town, Liuyang City, to see the marvels of his nearly 20,000-mu Dawei Mountain bamboo-tube wine base.
Each nan bamboo culm bearing a red wine label stands tall and plump. A "wine-planting" technician selects one and saws it from the base; the nan bamboo "gestating" its precious liquid comes crashing down.
"A single bamboo can only 'plant' two culm sections, otherwise the bamboo itself gets drunk," Wu Jing told the reporter. Into each culm section, 750 grams of base liquor is "planted," and about 500 grams is harvested - the other 250 grams is "drunk" by the bamboo, which also "drinks up" trace methanol, heavy metals and other harmful substances in the liquor.
The sawed-off bamboo-tube wine is a seamless whole. Wu Jing takes out a small wooden mallet and knocks a hole through the node partition at the top - and that counts as opening the wine. The bamboo-tube wine is golden and translucent, its rich aroma mingling with the fresh scent of bamboo, drifting through the grove.
"Our bamboo-tube wine is not only sold by the tube, but also by the mu. Besides the wine, we also include bamboo forest by-products in the package," Wu Jing said. One mu of wine brings in 30,000 to 40,000 yuan, and along with it come fresh bamboo shoots, dried bamboo shoots and more, as well as their own developed bamboo-tube rice, bamboo-root water and bamboo mushrooms. This innovative marketing model is a real eye-opener.
Base liquor of over 60 degrees "plants" into bamboo-tube wine of over 40 degrees - just the right taste
"I've been in the liquor business for more than 10 years, and the wine that has passed through my hands is worth several hundred million yuan," Wu Jing told the reporter. In 1999, after graduating from Hunan College of Finance and Economics, he went to a baijiu company in Taizhou, Zhejiang. In 5 years, he rose from salesman to marketing director. After that, he never left the liquor industry - he worked for others, and during that time also started two businesses of his own.
A few years ago, Wu Jing and partners founded Latour International Co., Ltd. in Guangzhou, specializing in the distribution of world-class red wines. But he was not content to "make wedding dresses for others" - he wanted to build his own liquor production base.
6 years ago, Wu Jing visited a bamboo fiber processing factory in Zhejiang, where he saw that bamboo is a treasure from top to bottom: bamboo fiber can absorb formaldehyde, benzene and other harmful substances, and bamboo membrane and bamboo leaf flavonoids both have excellent medicinal value. He boldly conceived the idea of "planting" liquor into bamboo and letting them grow together for a period of time, so as to harvest a healthful bamboo-tube wine.
In 2013, Wu Jing finally succeeded in trial "planting." He chose base liquor of over 60 degrees; because bamboo fiber absorbs some of the alcohol, the result was bamboo-tube wine of over 40 degrees - just the right taste.
The first bamboo-tube wine base was located in Huizhou, Guangdong, where he rented over 1,000 mu of bamboo mountain, but this was far from enough to meet supply.
"Last year in the first half, Vice Governor He Baoxiang led a delegation to Guangdong for investment promotion, which gave me the idea of returning to Hunan to start a business," Wu Jing told the reporter. Hunan has uniquely favorable agricultural resources, suitable for agricultural technology development. He returned to his hometown of Liuyang and successively developed two major bamboo-tube wine production bases: the Yanghua base and the Dawei Mountain base.
Bamboo-tube wine and a series of agricultural by-product developments can increase bamboo's value fifty to sixty times over
"In my life I've started businesses twice, been smug, and ridden a huge roller coaster. Now I want to do something down-to-earth," Wu Jing said without hiding his past.
The first venture was in 2008, when Wu Jing, having accumulated several years of experience, went into business for himself, distributing imported Italian sparkling wine. "In two years I made more than 10 million yuan, and even opened a teahouse and a restaurant in Changsha," Wu Jing said.
Good times did not last. In 2010, the smug Wu Jing got hooked on betting on football during the World Cup and lost badly - not only squandering his tens of millions in assets and real estate, but ending up more than 1 million yuan in debt.
"That time I reached the point of losing my wife and children. I forced myself to hold on and told myself I absolutely had to stand up again," Wu Jing said stubbornly.
He went out to work for others again, moving between Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and other places. Within a few years, he paid off his debts and once again owned his own company.
The more "down-to-earth" Wu Jing is now planning his wine kingdom in his hometown of Liuyang. Previously, getting in and out of the bamboo-tube wine base in Tianxi Village meant a tractor road of nearly 3 km. The first thing Wu Jing did was help the villagers widen and level the road. "In the past the road was hard to travel, and there was no decent processing plant nearby, so the villagers could only sell raw bamboo, at most 20 yuan a culm," Wu Jing said. The development of bamboo-tube wine and a series of by-products can increase bamboo's value fifty to sixty times over.
"'Planting' wine is only part of the industrial development; we will also research and develop more by-products," Wu Jing said. Bamboo that hasn't been used for "planting" wine can be turned into vacuum-packed bamboo-tube rice or processed into bamboo products; bamboo roots grown in selenium-rich soil can be made into bamboo-root water; and bamboo mushrooms can be cultivated in fully rotted bamboo scraps. Wu Jing plans to invest 100 million yuan over 5 years in the development of bamboo-series agricultural by-products.
What also rises in value is the villagers' income. "The series of industrial developments at the bamboo-tube wine base can absorb more than 200 villagers into employment. In the past, the villagers' annual income was only just over 10,000 yuan. I can say responsibly that in the future their income will be 3 times what it was before," Wu Jing said with full confidence. (Hunan Daily reporter Liu Yinyan)