Wine Intelligence melts our minds with their China syndrome

CHINA ON MY MIND

The opportunity China represents can only be exploited if brand owners truly understand they must cater for a radically different market.

The China Wine Market Landscape Report, a new study from Wine Intelligence, sets out the opportunities in a country that has an estimated 34m ‘upper-middle class consumers’ – a figure that should rise to 82m by 2025.

These consumers will apparently crowd into first class with Sir Nicolas Winterton and exchange stories about the hoi polloi who travel in cattle class.

But exporters will only make headway if they have specific strategies for China and don’t simply see it as another market.

No, it’s bigger because more people live there

‘Global brand owners must find out what the Chinese really want, explain their products, and understand they must be tailored to Chinese needs,’ Richard Halstead, chief operating officer of Wine Intelligence told decanter.com.

Yes, the labels must be written in Chinese, explaining that the liquid in the bottle is called wine.

Consumers still find the process of buying imported wine difficult because even in international supermarkets like Carrefour or Tesco there is little information on the label to tell them what the wine is.

Wine is fermented grape juice. That should do it.

‘I think most of the wine industry round the world would agree that Asia in general, and China in particular, represent a colossal opportunity for sales growth over the next 20-30 years,’ Halstead said.

No way!

‘Yet the closer you get to the market, the more you see that global brand owners have a lot of work still to do, both in terms of distribution and product positioning, to really engage with Chinese consumers.’

I’m sure those clever bods from Gallo and Jacob’s Creek will come up with a devilishly clever marketing strategy. But we can definitely expect Cloudy Bay to scrape an extra billion bottles to satisfy this emergent market and I’m absolutely certain that a Languedoc consortium is working on labelling its faux-Burgundy for the newly-engaged consumers.

China is already the eighth largest wine market by volume. The report quotes recent data putting it at 72m cases, and growing at 18.5% per annum.

Brilliant! This contradicts the rest of the article.

Wine Intelligence considers upper-middle class consumers – those with over RMB50,000 (US$7,300) disposable income per annum – as ‘the key to imported wine’s future in China’.

No, and I thought teetotalers and people who lived in poverty were going to be the key consumers. Did they need a survey to prove this non-contentious fact?

While 90% of the wine drunk in China is domestically produced, this growing rump of affluent consumers increasingly chooses imported wine.

Growing rump?!

Halstead said he wanted to explode ‘the 7UP myth’ – referring to the belief that the Chinese mix fine Bordeaux with soft drinks to make it more palatable.

Yes, I do believe that Bordeaux makes 7 Up taste a lot better. I have to say that if this Chinese mythology, I think it is rather prosaic. Give me Greek myths any time.

‘There is no doubt that there is a new generation of urban professionals in their 20s and 30s who like drinking wine.’

Say the word. Yuppies!

At the moment, ‘Chinese culture has grown used to thinking wine equals red wine,’ Halstead said, but this is changing.

Five thousand years of civilised culture and they still think wine equals red wine. Will they never learn?

While white and sparkling wine together represent only about 10% of imported wine consumption, ‘there are growth opportunities for white wine as more people follow their own learning curves.’

I’m glad we are not lapsing into meaningless jargon here. And I spot a gap in the market here for Learning Curve Chardonnay from Turning Leaf.

It is becoming more usual, for example, for women to choose white wine with fish.

No way!  How reassuringly modish. And with snake? Having said that there is nothing like Mateus Rose with abalone. Nothing.

The China Wine Market Landscape Report came out of a research project conducted in partnership with InterRhone, the trade body for Rhone wines, which has ‘identified China as the key growth area for their growers’ products over the next 20 years’, Halstead said.

Chinaneuf-du-Pape? Bring it on!