History
In 1999, the patriarch of Silver Heights, Gao Lin, had a premonition: one day, his home province of Ningxia would become a sought-after region for world-class wines. He began planting Cabernet Sauvignon vines sourced from France, and convinced his daughter, Gao Yuan (also known as Emma), to voyage abroad to Bordeaux and there to enroll in a Masters of Oenology program.
Thierry's better half, Gao Yuan, was born and raised right here in Yinchuan, back when the city was a small provincial town. After studying in St. Petersburg for a time, she set off to study in Bordeaux and there discovered her love of wine and passion for wine making.
While in France, Emma had the opportunity to intern at several historic Bordeaux wineries, including the world-famous Château Calon-Ségur. She quickly became close friends with the chateau's winemaker, Thierry Courtade, whose family has been making wine at Calon-Ségur for three generations. Their friendship deepened into love, and they were married in 2003. In 2005, Emma returned home to China as one of the few Chinese women with a diplôme national d’oenologue, and Thierry and their daughter, also named Emma, followed soon after.
After returning, Emma first briefly worked for Torres China, one of the country's most prestigious wine importers. Her true passion, however, lay in winemaking, and she collaborated with her father and Thierry to begin making a very small amount of wine at her parents' farm on the then-outskirts of Yinchuan. One day, out of the blue, Emma presented an unlabelled magnum bottle of her 100% Cabernet Sauvignon to Alberto Fernandez, the managing partner of Torres China. He was blown away, and immediately proposed the following to her: she would make wine full-time, and Torres would distribute it. Thus, Silver Heights was finally born. And that first wine? It became Emma's Reserve, and has gone on to acclaim.
Since their first vintage in 2007 was met with astonished accolades by domestic and international wine experts, Gao Lin, Emma, and Thierry have continued to focus on making the highest quality wine possible and on developing the Ningxia terroir.
An indispensable figure at Silver Heights is winemaker Thierry Courtade. Born in in the famous wine-making region of Saint-Estèphe, Bordeaux to a family with more than 50 years of wine-making history at Château Calon-Ségur, Thierry moved to Yinchuan in 2012. Due to his cheerful personality, he was given the Chinese name “吉利” meaning lucky or auspicious.