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Is the future of wine Chinese?

Author Damien Wilde
Posted On 28th April 2015

Vineyard

When it comes to creating a delicately tailored drinks menu to compliment your array of finely chosen mains, where do you typically look to source your wine from?

Normally, we’d expect that the vast majority of options in high street restaurants and fine dining establishments originate from the traditional wine-growing powerhouses of Spain and France, backed up with a couple of options from different nations such as Chile and Australia.

But what about China?

If current development trends are maintained, then we could be seeing an influx of Chinese reds and whites populate the British market.

According to figures released by the International Organisation of Vine and Wine (IOVW), China has now the second-largest amount of land dedicated to wine-growing after Spain. France comes in third.

For those interested, China has 1.97 million acres of land devoted to wine growing; Spain has 2.52 million.

This shift has seen the Asian country become the world’s fifth largest producer too. Given time, would it be ridiculous to hypothesise that China could reach number one at some point in the future?

With young vines and vast amounts of lands available it’s a very realistic prospect!

And the growth isn’t just limited to the vineyards either: A Drinks Business report, published in 2013, states that more bottles of red wine are sold in China than anywhere else in the world and that consumption has leapt up by 136% in the past seven years.

Reasons given for wine’s surge in popularity include positive health connotations and, for red varieties, some rather beneficial associations:

“Red is a very positive hue in Chinese culture,” the Bordeaux-based Vinexpo begins to explain.

“[The colour] is associated with wealth, power and good luck. In business circles, these three values are fundamental. Red wine is therefore an obvious choice for business hospitality, where partners can drink to each others’ health.”

However, global consumption fell slightly last year to 240 million hectolitres, from 242 million the year before.

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