Wine Wars (Part 2)(2)
Mihalis Boutaris
Greece
Mihalis Boutaris is proof that there are ways to enter China's wine market other than shipping bottles here: He's hoping Beijing will fall in love with a wine he's overseeing in Gansu for local winemaker Mogao in a 500-million-yuan Sino-Greek joint venture. Fifth generation from a family of winemakers renowned for the wines of their Kir Yianni estate, Boutaris majored in viticulture at the University of California.
Kir Yianni wines are not yet sold in China, explains Boutaris, "as the Xinomavro grape is not yet widely appreciated by the buyers. But our flagship barrel-aged white from the Assyrtico grape made on Santorini has had a good track record in Shanghai."
Moen, as the new Gansu wine label will be called, was born in 2008 when Mogao chiefs visited the Boutaris' vineyard on the Aegean island of Santorini, a favored destination for Chinese tourists. Winemaking goes back 6,500 years in Greece - some credit the great Greek civilization and Dionysus, the god of wine, for spreading winemaking to colonies in Italy, France and Spain.
Low in volume compared to fellow Mediterranean states France or Spain, Greek wines retain niche popularity, certainly among the country's Diaspora. Kir Yianni, which exports up to four million bottles a year to the US and Europe, felt the Chinese market would be too much of a battle in its current early level of maturity. So Boutaris got into partnership with Mogao to produce a Cabernet Sauvignon (with plans for Pinot Noir) in Gansu for the local market.
Mogao, which already sells six million bottles a year to a mostly provincial Chinese clientele, hopes to have 50,000 bottles ready for next year's market when its winery is completed in 2011. Wine will be targeted at cities like Beijing, explains Bougaris who has been supervising vine planting in Gansu, even planting an experimental one mu (0.07 hectares) of the Xinomavro grape.
Winemakers in provinces like Ningxia and Shandong are "heroes," believes Boutaris since they battle tough natural conditions: Vines must be buried in winter to avoid freezing weather and sprayed in summer to prevent them from rotting. Gansu is a better bet, said Boutaris, since it's dry in summer, unlike Shandong, the apparent favorite of foreign winemakers like Chateau Lafite, which tends vines there.
There are challenges: Gansu farmers have little background in viticulture. Yet Boutaris sees a niche among Chinese who want value and taste without paying the often-extortionate prices of French wines. "I believe that Chinese consumers will eventually gravitate toward premium local wine, if it tastes good, and is not overly expensive."
