Companies

US wineries seek growing Chinese market

(Agencies)
Updated: 2010-08-09 11:05

Imported wines displayed at a bar in Ningbo, Zhejiang province in the file photo taken in 2009. [Photo / Asianewsphoto]

Chinese on the mainland drink about 75 million cases of wine a year, said Richard Halstead, chief operating officer of the British consultancy Wine Intelligence Ltd. But 90 percent is domestically produced wine "that most wine consumers in other countries would struggle to recognize as the product they drink," he said.

Foreign sellers need to guide new consumers on types of wines and how they taste, Halstead said.

"Chinese consumers are confused by wine," he said in an e-mail. "This is hardly surprising: most Western consumers are, too, and they don't have to deal with a totally alien script when trying to decipher what's on the label."

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Wine Intelligence estimates the number of Chinese who drink imported wine — those that can part with $20 or more for a bottle — will grow to about 50 million in 15 years, nearly the number in the US who now drink imports.

The average salary in China's urban areas is $356 a month, according to the latest figures from China's National Bureau of Statistics. But the country's new affluence is staggering, and the desire for wine is rapidly spreading beyond the big cities, Portney said.

He and Ryweck see similarities with this country. The US had a "hard liquor and beer culture" until World War II, when GIs brought a taste for wine home from Europe, Ryweck said. By the 1970s, there were countless good domestic and imported wines on store shelves.

Millions of Chinese work or study overseas and bring home what they learn, Ryweck said. "They're changing Chinese society and part of that is wine culture."