Chinese Wine Buyers Pushing Up Prices

  Even though many treat wine merely as another must-have luxury, wealthy Chinese are already making a splash in the wine futures market.

Chinese buyers are the main force causing the French fine wine index to shoot up 37 per cent from one year ago and 24 per cent this year, Shanghai-based independent economist Andy Xie wrote recently in Caing business magazine.

Bordeaux's top 200 or 300 wineries run a pr文章来源中国酒业新闻网esale system called sale en primeur. Early each summer, they exchange futures contracts with middlemen who then do deals with collectors, investors and retailers.

The Chinese have been snapping these futures up, particularly for a first-growth Bordeaux wine produced by Chteau Lafite Rothschild, known in China by its Chinese name La fei.

At 4,500 yuan (US$672) to 6,000 yuan a bottle, that has become the most popular luxury wine in China in recent years.

Buyers from China are increasingly pricing out the Japanese, Taiwanese and Hongkongers, Mr Xie noted.

In July, speculators put the price of Lafite futures for its 2009 vintage at almost 1,000 euros per bottle -- double the release price -- causing observers to voice fears of a bubble forming.

Wine expert Qi Wen told The Straits Times: "This is abnormal pricing and quite worrying in terms of what it will do to the global wine market in the long run. Lafite's price is now skewed and not compatible with what it's really worth any more."

She added: "We need to teach Chinese wine-drinkers to buy wine that fits their budget."