Washington Vinyard breaks into Chinese market -- selling 244 cases to Fuzhou
By Bennett A. Reiss 2009-5-19 16:29:02
The concept of "sister cities" is something I first learned about when Wikipedia came online a few years ago. When you "wiki" a city, it conveniently provides you a list of sister cities.
For instance, when living in Suzhou, China I "wikied" the city to learn some random facts. Suzhou's sister cities in the United States include such places as Jacksonville, Florida and Portland Oregon. Go figure?
The concept of sister cities never crossed my mind again, that is until I read this great article and learned that Stina's Cellars, a vineyard from Tacoma, Washington managed to break into the China market via their sister city of Fuzhou, China.
After three consecutive delegations of representatives from Fuzhou, China visited the vineyard and sampled the wine, calls started coming in and Stina's Cellars suddenly found it self with 224 cases in new orders from a market they never thought they would be selling to. One importer recently emailed the Washington Vintner and asked "What’s the maximum capacity of the winery? I want to know how much I can get."
For instance, when living in Suzhou, China I "wikied" the city to learn some random facts. Suzhou's sister cities in the United States include such places as Jacksonville, Florida and Portland Oregon. Go figure?
The concept of sister cities never crossed my mind again, that is until I read this great article and learned that Stina's Cellars, a vineyard from Tacoma, Washington managed to break into the China market via their sister city of Fuzhou, China.
After three consecutive delegations of representatives from Fuzhou, China visited the vineyard and sampled the wine, calls started coming in and Stina's Cellars suddenly found it self with 224 cases in new orders from a market they never thought they would be selling to. One importer recently emailed the Washington Vintner and asked "What’s the maximum capacity of the winery? I want to know how much I can get."
From winetwo.net