China stocks up on Bordeaux wines
Chinese buyers in Bordeaux for this week's tasting of the latest and still unbottled 2007 vintage are also stocking up on earlier vintages to let the wine flow at the Olympic Games.
Speaking at a tasting in St Emilion, Chinese buyer Steven Lu and partner Ida Huang, said that with domestic demand growing, they planned to double the amount of new "primeur" wines they bought last year, while also stocking up on bottled wines for the 2008 Olympics.
"We are looking for lots of bottled wines, like the 2005's, to buy for the Olympic Games. International visitors will want wines and so will the Chinese," Lu said.
Lu, who sells to high-end hotels, restaurants and private clients in Beijing and Shanghai, said the Olympic effect would influence purchases across the board.
Asked about prices, he said he hoped the Bordeaux producers would take into account the strength of the euro.
"But I cannot tell these people what to do," he added, indicating the producers in the room and demonstrating a significant difference between Asian and Anglo-Saxon buyers, who tend to demand price reductions this year, almost prior to tasting.
Lu said so called "New World" wines, from Australia, South Africa and America, were popular in China, but "French wines are more delicate" and in greater demand.
Another Chinese buyer, Yang Shen, also in Bordeaux to buy primeur 2007 wines currently maturing in barrels, said he too would be doubling his volumes for the Olympics.
"We are doing some purchasing of bottled wines in the two to five-euro category, some as stock for the Olympics and some to feed the growing domestic demand," said Shen.
Shen, whose company is called Ascenda, said he normally imports about 300000 bottles of Bordeaux but this year he will increase that by between 30 to 50 percent.
"Our company is focused on the Chinese"
"Our company is focused more on the Chinese market," he said.
"This is the first year we will experiment buying primeurs for the grand cru classe market," he said, referring to the fact that most top wines ranked as classified growths are sold as primeurs, two years before they are bottled.
Mathieu Chadronnier of CVBG Dourthe-Kressmann, one of Bordeaux's top wholesale merchants for medium- to high-end wines, also confirmed the Olympic effect.
"We have had lots more orders," said Chadronnier. "Our importers in China are expecting significantly increased activity during the Olympic Games.
"It is obvious there will be more sales, particularly in the hotel and restaurant trade, and they are preparing stock for that, as well as to meet generally increased consumption levels."
Asked if he could put a figure on increased orders, Chadronnier predicted his company, which turned over 135-million in 2007, up nine percent on 2006, would double sales to China in 2008.
Figures from the Bordeaux wine board, (Conseil Interprofessionnel du Vin de Bordeaux, CIVB) show exports to China in 2007 increased 82 percent in volume on 2006 and were worth 45-million, a 158 percent increase. For the first time last year, China also entered the top 10 countries for Bordeaux exports.