NZ wines to explore Chinese high-end wine market

Aiming for the fine-wine collector market and top-end restaurants, a group of 21 boutique New Zealand wineries has so far signed export contracts with distributors in Hong Kong, Malaysia and the Netherlands. China and the UK are in the pipeline. 

New Zealand Winegrowers global marketing director Chris Yorke said Kiwi winegrowers worked well together because it was an efficient way of reaching their audiences. 

The industry body was currently working with NZTE to target Northern Europe. 

Research was under way to determine which areas to focus on, but were likely to include Scandinavia, the Benelux countries, Germany and Switzerland. 

"The next step will be to identify what I call the pots of gold: the people who are prepared to pay for our premium wines and then how to get the wine to them," Yorke said. 

The New Zealand wine industry's three key growth markets were North America, Northern Europe and Asia, particularly China. 

New Zealand Winegrowers was about to conduct its first tasting in Beijing. 

It would then be doing further work with NZTE on next steps in China. "In China particularly a lot of education is needed." 

The industry body was using the services of China's first Master of Wine student to help with education programmes.