Good wine always comes with a story...
Highland barley wine is the progenitor of barley wine and a totem of Tibetan culture. As an ethnic minority uniquely inhabiting the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, the Huzhu Tibetan Autonomous County lies in the northeastern part of the plateau. It is the birthplace of barley wine, the country’s largest production base for it, and the region with the highest concentration of Tibetan people. Thus, the legends about barley and highland barley wine here are the most moving.
According to the Classic of Mountains and Seas, the Kunlun Mountains are home to a “Queen Mother of the West” with the body of a leopard and the head of a human, a revered Taoist deity. She shares the responsibility of guiding both male and female immortals in their cultivation with the Eastern King of the Gods. Her mount and messenger is the Great Bluebird, which fetches food for her. One day, upon returning from gathering food on the Eastern Sea’s immortal mountain, the Great Bluebird accidentally dropped an immortal seed into what is now Weiyuan Ancient Town in Huzhu County. The seed took root and sprouted into a lush field of wheat, yielding bountiful harvests year after year, nurturing generations of Tibetan descendants. To honor the Great Bluebird, the crop was given a beautiful name—highland barley.
Highland barley is a unique grain crop grown at altitudes of 2,500 to 3,500 meters above sea level and is hailed as the “black pearl of the plateau.” It possesses tenacious vitality, rich nutritional value, and notable medicinal benefits. The Compendium of Materia Medica Supplement notes that highland barley helps regulate qi, strengthen vitality, eliminate dampness, induce perspiration, and relieve diarrhea. The Jingzhu Materia Medica even classifies it as an important traditional Chinese medicine used to treat various ailments. For thousands of years, highland barley has been widely cultivated by the Tibetan ancestors, and the origin of highland barley wine stems from a beautiful legend.
Legend has it that the Eight Immortals, who wandered the world, were returning from the Queen Mother of the West’s Peach Banquet when they were captivated by the sea of barley beneath Dragon King Mountain. Approaching an ancient well near Weiyuan Fortress, they found an elderly woman setting up a tea stand under the scorching sun. The Eight Immortals joined the queue for tea, and the kind woman served them all. Thirsty, the immortals took a sip and found the tea extraordinarily refreshing. Curious, they looked into the well and discovered it was connected to a sacred spring in Dragon King Mountain—the Black Dragon Spring. Touched by the woman’s kindness, the Immortal Iron-Crutch Li opened his magical wine gourd and poured its immortal brew from the Queen Mother’s celestial pond into the well. He told the old woman that henceforth, any wine brewed with this well’s water would gain fame across the land and bring prosperity. With that, the Eight Immortals transformed into a gentle breeze and vanished. The old woman drew water from the well, tasted it, and found it fragrant and soul-refreshing. From then on, she set up a distillery beside the well, using the well’s water and highland barley to brew fragrant, world-renowned highland barley wine. And thus, this well became known as the “Weiyuan Divine N...”<”.
After hearing this, don’t you want to taste the deliciousness of this highland barley wine?
Don’t worry—there’s more to the story...
As the progenitor of barley wine, highland barley wine’s culture can be traced back over 1,300 years to the era of Princess Wencheng’s journey to Tibet. The ancestors of the Tibetans—the Kingdom of Tuyuhun—were welcomed at Chiling by Princess Honghua, who was presented with the homemade liquor. Princess Wencheng was highly impressed and left behind brewing techniques and artisans, refining traditional methods alongside the Tibetans and co-writing the myth of barley wine.
Over centuries, generation after generation of Tibetan ancestors developed unique brewing methods through daily life, passing them down orally and refining them continuously. By the late Ming and early Qing dynasties, around 400 years ago, Huzhu had eight prominent distilleries producing what is today’s highland barley wine.
Today, if you wish to experience authentic highland barley brewing culture and the most distinctive Tibetan traditions, Naton Manor is a must-visit destination.
As the saying goes, “Wine carried a thousand miles remains fragrant; once the vat is opened, it intoxicates visitors ten miles away.” The enduring aroma of highland barley wine over centuries is inseparable from its special brewing technique. To preserve and promote this tradition, Naton Manor has established a large-scale highland barley wine workshop, restoring the ancient brewing process and building the largest underground cellar in northwest China, spanning over 1,000 square meters. Here, you can step back in time and savor the aromas and flavors: a pure grain spirit made from plateau barley, fermented using traditional methods, then distilled. The resulting liquor is naturally fragrant, additive-free, mellow in taste, not overly strong, and carries subtle hints of sweet, sour, bitter, and spicy—embodying the true flavors of life. A single sip is worth a lifetime.
Additionally, you can witness the solemn ritual of toasting the wine god for blessings. As Tibetans follow Tibetan Buddhism, freshly brewed wine is first offered to household or divine spirits without touching the ground, ensuring a prosperous, healthy, and peaceful new year. This ceremony is called “Gods Don’t Touch the Ground” or “First Wine for the Gods.” Due to its profound wine culture, in 2009, Huzhu Weiyuan barley wine was designated a provincial-level intangible cultural heritage, and Naton Manor’s highland barley wine workshop was recognized as its cultural preservation base.
Naton Manor, the most beautiful Tibetan manor in Qinghai, with highland barley wine as its soulful masterpiece.
Beyond that, Naton Manor houses a comprehensive Tibetan Folk Culture Museum, a 1,600-square-meter Golden Flower Performance Center, and a five-star manor rich in Tibetan cultural features. After your tour, you can enjoy the uniquely Tibetan “Circle Feast,” followed by trying the “Wheel of Autumn” ride—a traditional Tibetan activity that once appeared at the Olympic Games opening ceremony—as well as other numerous intangible cultural heritage programs. For example, the “Bangbang Festival,” a rare, primitive religious and cultural art form preserved for over 400 years since the eighth year of the Ming Dynasty’s Wanli era, maintaining original beliefs and sacrificial rituals. It gets its name from the sound “bang bang” made by monks dancing with single-sided sheepskin drums while rhythmically striking them with wooden sticks, symbolizing prayers for favorable weather and national peace.
At Naton Manor, you can also experience a highlight attraction: the Tibetan wedding, listed as a national intangible cultural heritage.
Tibetan weddings showcase the Tibetan people’s song and dance culture, religious culture, clothing culture, and culinary culture. Two key figures in the wedding are the “Nashijin,” or bridegroom attendants—respected elders in the village known for their singing, dancing, and eloquence. Unique customs such as water-splashing, playful scolding, hair-changing, and bridal weeping mark the Tibetan wedding. A complete Tibetan wedding generally includes five steps: proposal, engagement, gift-giving, the ceremony itself, and the thank-you banquet. The “Anzhao Dance” is one of the oldest Tibetan dances, known in Tibetan as “Natengjin More,” meaning “dancing in a circle.” It is a generational Tibetan song-and-dance form expressing joy for harvests and praise for a beautiful life. Additionally, the “Danma Flower Song Festival” and “Tibetan Embroidery” are unique Tibetan folk forms, both listed as national intangible cultural heritage items in 2006.
Come to Huzhu with curiosity, reverence, and anticipation. Stay at Naton Manor, immerse yourself in millennia of wine fragrance, deep history, and embark on a unique cultural journey through Tibetan traditions.