Couple markets B.C. wine to China from Richmond strip mall

METRO VANCOUVER — A storefront location in a Richmond strip mall may not be everyone’s idea of a destination winery experience. There’s no charming inn or a picturesque perch of any kind at Blossom Winery.

But for several years, owners John Chang and Allison Lu have welcomed a steady stream of tourists from Taiwan, Japan, Korea and mainland China. At the same time, they have been exporting most of their blueberry, raspberry and ice wines to these markets.

“Because I am from Asia, I started making wine in an industrial fashion, not in an agricultural way like a farmer,” said Chang, who moved from Taipei to Vancouver in the late 1990s. “People sometimes ask, ‘Where are the vineyards? This is all shopping centres’. But they don’t understand that we welcome large groups from Asia.”

“[Western] tourists want to stay in one place and relax, soak up the atmosphere,” explained Lu. “But Asian tourists want to see as much as they can. So in a seven-day tour, they go to the Rockies, they go to Whistler, then a city tour, then over to Victoria. It’s very packed. Their itineraries don’t always leave much time.”

So they have come, tasted, bought, and been off again. As Lu puts it: “We are close to the airport.”

Blossom buys berries from Richmond farmers, and has contracts with 10 Okanagan vineyards for grapes. Chang “learned winemaking on his grandmother’s knee,” said Angie Chew, director of marketing at Tourism Richmond. “He mixes in thoughts of Chinese medicine and antioxidants and uses a philosophy which is kind of different.”

Canadian trade officials have come to Chang for help with their marketing efforts.

“Almost 90 per cent of the icewine sold in Asia is fake,” said Lu. “Icewine has become famous in Asia because of tourism, but there are many impostors. We hear stories about companies harvesting grapes in July and August and putting them in a freezer. We try to show people how the real stuff is made, how much time it takes, and how rare it is so they will understand prices.”

So far, the company’s niche has been ticking along. Next month, however, Chang and Lu will get set to open a new 22,000-square-foot facility in Richmond. The to-be-unveiled Lulu Island Winery sits on 14 acres of land at Westminster Highway and No. 7 Road and houses multiple tasting rooms. There is space for a restaurant. The goal now is all about creating cozy, bucolic ambiance. Grape vines were planted more than a year ago and are winding around the property.

Why the change in tack? “They are well-positioned to sell a more mainstream experience to their Asian customers and give them the option of a more enriched tour, rather than just getting them in and out,” said Chew of Tourism Richmond. “They also understand that they need to expand and grow business outside their Asian market.”

For Chang, morphing like this to sell cross-cultural concepts is second nature. A lifetime ago, he said, on his first trip to Canada, he visited a Canadian Tire store and was captivated by the concept of do-it-yourself products. He tried to recreate a store in Taiwan, but “it wasn’t a great success because Chinese people didn’t get it. If you have a problem, you pay someone to fix it. You don’t try to do it yourself the way people do here. In those days, people in Taipei still worked six days a week.”

To cope, Chang packaged up do-it-yourself repair services for factories in Taiwan, wholeselling them all sorts of building materials, pipes and cables.