Dr. Nguyen Cong Ngu is known as a hero in the Bac Hai District in the mountainous province of Lao Cai for his wine made from the area’s specialty Tam Hoa plums and other Vietnamese fruits.
The story of the “hero of the white valley” began a few years ago when the Bac Hai inhabitants couldn’t sell their plums and wanted to cut down the trees for wood. The district’s leader had to ask the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development to rescue the trees! Hearing the story, retired Dr. Ngu, went to Bac Ha and brought some of the Tam Hoa plums to Ha Noi to experiment with and see if he could make wine from the plums. He had previous experience of making wine from apricots so he just applied the process of distilling apricot wine to producing plum wine. Tam Hoa plums are red and very sweet, and have a thick pulp, but they don’t have a scent. Therefore, Dr. Ngu mixed Ta Van plums which have an exotic scent with Tam Hoa plums. After successfully making plum wine, he went to Lao Cai with it and introduced it to the locality in a bid to convince them not to cut down the plum trees. The Lao Cai Province bought tons of plums from farmers for Dr. Ngu to make 40,000 liters of plum wine, equal to 50,000 bottles. With the same technology, Dr. Ngu has also produced other drinks and jams from plums. Following this discovery he began to work at producing wines from other Vietnamese fruits such as grapes, guava, strawberry, watermelon and coffee. Wherever he travels Dr.Ngu always brings home local fruits for wine experimentation. Dr. Ngu began testing apricot stones after reading a newspaper article about the benefits of eating five apricot stones a day over many years and the prevention of cancer. This led to the production of a new wine made from the apricot stone. He said, “Apricot stones are very precious because they contain B17 and B15 which help prevent cancer.” On a field trip, Dr. Ngu realized that farmers only took the coffee grains but threw away the outer layer, he thought this to be wasteful. And later… coffee wine came into existence. Dr. Ngu is now also famous for many kinds of cognac sold under the brand name Green Forest Cognac which are certified for meeting national quality standards by Ha Noi’s Health Department and Standards and Quality Department. He won a quality award for his apricot stone wine at the international wine challenge 2007. “Countries famous for wine like France and the US have placed orders and cooperated with Viet Nam to make apricot stone wine,” he said. Dr. Ngu, 71, graduated from Ha Noi University of Technology and obtained Ph.D degree in Canada, was awarded a certificate of merit from former Prime Minister Pham Van Dong for his cassava noodle which helped prevent children having constipation 40 years ago.
The story of the “hero of the white valley” began a few years ago when the Bac Hai inhabitants couldn’t sell their plums and wanted to cut down the trees for wood. The district’s leader had to ask the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development to rescue the trees! Hearing the story, retired Dr. Ngu, went to Bac Ha and brought some of the Tam Hoa plums to Ha Noi to experiment with and see if he could make wine from the plums. He had previous experience of making wine from apricots so he just applied the process of distilling apricot wine to producing plum wine. Tam Hoa plums are red and very sweet, and have a thick pulp, but they don’t have a scent. Therefore, Dr. Ngu mixed Ta Van plums which have an exotic scent with Tam Hoa plums. After successfully making plum wine, he went to Lao Cai with it and introduced it to the locality in a bid to convince them not to cut down the plum trees. The Lao Cai Province bought tons of plums from farmers for Dr. Ngu to make 40,000 liters of plum wine, equal to 50,000 bottles. With the same technology, Dr. Ngu has also produced other drinks and jams from plums. Following this discovery he began to work at producing wines from other Vietnamese fruits such as grapes, guava, strawberry, watermelon and coffee. Wherever he travels Dr.Ngu always brings home local fruits for wine experimentation. Dr. Ngu began testing apricot stones after reading a newspaper article about the benefits of eating five apricot stones a day over many years and the prevention of cancer. This led to the production of a new wine made from the apricot stone. He said, “Apricot stones are very precious because they contain B17 and B15 which help prevent cancer.” On a field trip, Dr. Ngu realized that farmers only took the coffee grains but threw away the outer layer, he thought this to be wasteful. And later… coffee wine came into existence. Dr. Ngu is now also famous for many kinds of cognac sold under the brand name Green Forest Cognac which are certified for meeting national quality standards by Ha Noi’s Health Department and Standards and Quality Department. He won a quality award for his apricot stone wine at the international wine challenge 2007. “Countries famous for wine like France and the US have placed orders and cooperated with Viet Nam to make apricot stone wine,” he said. Dr. Ngu, 71, graduated from Ha Noi University of Technology and obtained Ph.D degree in Canada, was awarded a certificate of merit from former Prime Minister Pham Van Dong for his cassava noodle which helped prevent children having constipation 40 years ago.
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