See you in Shanghai
Groot Constantia winemaker Boela Gerber jokingly refers to his tasting room as “a Chinese railway station”, reflecting the rapidly changing demographic of wine tourism.
Many a tourist with no booking at the Black Marlin at Millers Point, just beyond Simonstown, has been defeated by Hylton-Ross-loads of anorak-clad oldies in an abalone and shark-fin soup frenzy.
That’s a trend set to continue as Chinese president Hu Jintao racked up even more frequent flier miles to the continent last month. Sino-African trade is up tenfold since 2000 and last year rocketed 45% to 107-billion, a trend Hu insists will continue.
So far most of the trade has been one-way in non-renewable resources such as oil, iron and coal. But with Chinese external tourism breaking all records, there is a good chance that wine will join perlemoen as something sought after in Shanghai. The removal of wine import duties into Hong Kong last February provides SA winemakers with an attractive base from which to launch a campaign.
The International Wine & Spirit Competition in the city in November is a most auspicious occasion to launch an initiative.
The numbers are a wine marketer’s dream: Asian wine sales (excluding Japan) are forecast to grow from US 7-billion in 2007 to 17-billion in 2012 and 27-billion in 2017, with imports making up 15-billionof that. SA producers such as Oranjerivier Wine Cellars are already shipping large volumes of bag-in-box sweet reds and some bulk producers are doubtless shipping low-priced juice to join Chile and Argentina in local blends labelled Chinese Wine.
But the real excitement is at the premium end of the market. Boris de Vroomen, MD of Moët Hennessy Diageo, notes that in Hong Kong, sales are 17% of the market as opposed to a global figure of 70%. Exporters should focus on reds, the Chinese auspicious colour, hot and humid climes notwithstanding, for Marlborough sauvignon blanc has the white market wrapped up, outselling other whites 10:1, according to New World wine importer David Roberts of Horizon Cellars.
One way forward might be to open a South African Wine Shop along the lines of Margaret River in Asia. Located on St Francis Street in trendy Wan Chai, this boutique wine shop offers carefully selected Australian drops for discerning drinkers. Across the road is an upscale French-wine emporium called les Q and a Chicken Pot shop that sells chicken in a pot.
To see “value for money” and “Margaret River” in the same sentence is unusual, but owner Ross Meder claims value is his USP (unique selling point) and points to some employees of a large French bank shopping at his establishment.
Value for money is an attractive field, on which SA producers would be keen to play Australia. But there are problems, as Meder notes.
P eople still enter the store asking for Margaret and many Chinese believe a “real” wine has to have a French label. But things are changing. When I came to Hong Kong back in 1988, you’d go out for dinner and be offered a tumbler full of Martell brandy or a San Miguel beer. These days it’s either a HK40 bottle of supermarket wine or Château Latour.