China: wine fans start to go for white

Within three years, greater China will spend more money on still wines than the UK, and become the world’s second biggest wine consumer by value, after the US.

And along the way, the traditional preference for red in China will be accompanied by a growing taste for white wine.

So says Vinexpo, the global wine and spirits exhibition group, which on Thursday in Shanghai spelt out its views of the fast-developing Chinese wine market.

According to research commissioned by Vinexpo from International Wine and Spirit Research last year China overtook Britain as the fifth largest market by volume (still and sparkling), behind the US, Italy, France and Germany. Consumption of wine on the mainland and Hong Kong rose by a full 21.5 per cent.

It’s no secret the Chinese like their wine. What’s striking is how fast their consumption is growing. Vinexpo expects China to down over a billion more bottles annually between now and 2015 – a further 54 per cent increase. Over the same period, Europeans will drink just a smidgeon more wine, with a rise of less than half of one percent.

With 1.3bn people, many of them increasingly hitting the income levels where people around the world traditionally start to drink wine, it is hardly surprising that the Chinese middle class is starting to mix European wines with its baijiu (traditional Chinese firewater).

But what is more surprising is that it is no longer a slam dunk that it will be red wine nudging out the Chinese spirits.

China has a well-earned reputation for preferring Chateau Lafite to Chablis, and red wines still weigh in at 91 per cent of total consumption. But white wine drinking rose 19 per cent last year alone, with 70 per cent further growth expected by 2015. Good news for white wine producers, not least New Zealand.

Dominique Heriard Dubreuil, chairman of Vinexpo and chairman of the board of Remy Cointreau, says change this presents an educational challenge to vintners worldwide: “In general, Chinese people don’t like to drink something cold, but white wine is not at its best when warm.”

Education is the answer: Vinexpo will be presenting diplomas to graduates of its wine-tasting courses at its next exhibition in Hong Kong in May.

China, which has long loved its cognac, is on track to become the world’s biggest cognac market by 2016 or 2017, Vinexpo says, forecasting 47 per cent growth between 2011-2015 (after a 68 per cent leap from 2006-2010).

China is already cognac’s second largest market, after France. But recently Chinese buyers have complained of trouble getting their hands on the extra-premium spirits that they prefer.

“In China, people want very old cognacs, but global inventories of very old cognac are not very extensive,” says Heriard Dubreuil. Cognac is not the kind of thing that responds instantly to a rise in demand, she points out – it does not get old before its time.

But with China forecast to be drinking 3.3m cases of cognac by 2015, and global production only at 12m cases, it seems the Chinese will be complaining about shortages for quite some time to come. Cognac producers will be rubbing their hands with glee.