China is beginning to take its place in the world of wine, with experts predicting that in the next decade China could overtake Chile as the world’s destination for quality and affordable wine, and in another 50 becoming the world’s largest producer, yet China as an export market has been over looked to date. However, with the current demand for wine in their local market more than satisfying the output it may be a few years before we see Chinese wine on the shelves of Tesco (but don’t quote us on that).
It was recently reported by Decanter.com, that China has overtaken the UK as the leading export market for French global wine firm Castel. In 2009 the value of French wine entering the Hong Kong market rose a modest 32% to 270m USD (in 2008 French wine imports saw growth in HK of over 100% on the previous year).
Until recently the Chinese haven’t showed much interest in relative terms, in buying en primeur – as WineChap understands it the concept of buying wine which isn’t the finished article, as well as not being totally au fait with the concept of specific strong vintages means the latest great vintage 2005 in Bordeaux, largely passed the Chinese collectors by. Now that wines’ super brands are part of the discourse amongst these elite buyers, there is a trend towards understanding vintages better. WineChap is noticing that our Premier Crew clients are very interested in Bordeaux en primeur 2009 – in Asia as well as Europe. At a recent meeting with Corney and Barrow HK, WineChap discovered that they have been instructed by half a dozen of their local (HK/Chinese) collectors to buy as much of everything as they can get. Will we see the prices of Petrus 2009 beat the $2,500 per bottle it reached at the 2005 en primeur? Watch this space…
WineChap HK Investigates: China, A Market For En Primeur?
China is beginning to take its place in the world of wine, with experts predicting that in the next decade China could overtake Chile as the world’s destination for quality and affordable wine, and in another 50 becoming the world’s largest producer, yet China as an export market has been over looked to date. However, with the current demand for wine in their local market more than satisfying the output it may be a few years before we see Chinese wine on the shelves of Tesco (but don’t quote us on that).
It was recently reported by Decanter.com, that China has overtaken the UK as the leading export market for French global wine firm Castel. In 2009 the value of French wine entering the Hong Kong market rose a modest 32% to 270m USD (in 2008 French wine imports saw growth in HK of over 100% on the previous year).
Until recently the Chinese haven’t showed much interest in relative terms, in buying en primeur – as WineChap understands it the concept of buying wine which isn’t the finished article, as well as not being totally au fait with the concept of specific strong vintages means the latest great vintage 2005 in Bordeaux, largely passed the Chinese collectors by. Now that wines’ super brands are part of the discourse amongst these elite buyers, there is a trend towards understanding vintages better. WineChap is noticing that our Premier Crew clients are very interested in Bordeaux en primeur 2009 – in Asia as well as Europe. At a recent meeting with Corney and Barrow HK, WineChap discovered that they have been instructed by half a dozen of their local (HK/Chinese) collectors to buy as much of everything as they can get. Will we see the prices of Petrus 2009 beat the $2,500 per bottle it reached at the 2005 en primeur? Watch this space…
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