NZ wine merchants chase premium market in China

By DITA DE BONI

Several Kiwi vintners are hoping to repeat the success of New Zealand wine exports to Japan - our fourth largest market - by targeting China.

Villa Maria Estate has signed a Shanghai-based distributor to handle its wines in 50 Chinese cities over the next 10 years.

Nobilo Wines, working with an agency distributor in China for the last three years, has classified the market as having "very big opportunities."

The other large wine producers are also rumoured to be sizing up the prospect of one billion plus consumers.

Exporters are encouraged by signs of a burgeoning wine-drinking population in China, with the country's consumers being encouraged to drop grain-based spirits and turn to wine, which is touted as healthier and less expensive.

"Red wine is also [considered] very lucky," says Villa Maria export manager Ian Clark.

New Zealand wine could also benefit from the temporary ban on French wine imports into China.

The ban came into force after traces of ox-blood, a common but now illegal wine purifier, were found during a routine check of French wines in June, setting off a "mad-cow disease" scare.

It could provide an opening for new-world wines to gain a foothold in an import market dominated by Germany and France.

Mr Clark says New Zealand wine would hit the premium end of the market - costing $50 a bottle compared with $5 a bottle for Chinese wine.

But he says consumers there are increasingly looking for high-quality wine and "New Zealand is one of the world leaders for price-competitive quality wine." China is currently New Zealand's 26th wine-export market, netting only $44,000 in sales to June this year.

Some of the wine exported to Hong Kong - New Zealand's 12th export market - also drips on to the mainland but until now few wineries have taken the market seriously.

China's small wine-drinking population has been amply supplied with 18 million cases of European wine and a high capacity domestic industry.

But the Chinese Government has been telling consumers that lower-alcohol drinks are better for health than cognac - the nation's favourite tipple - and that grains used for making spirits could be better used to make bread and other foods.

Mr Clark says as a result of this change, New Zealand wine exporters will soon be working on how to supply demand.

Villa Maria has also ventured into the Caribbean and Central America with a distribution company in Guadalupe marketing wines to countries such as Bermuda, Costa Rica, Cuba and Jamaica.

Barbados is the first country from the region to accept a sizeable order for Villa Maria wine, with the first one dispatched from Florida last week.