China’s wine potential eyed by South African

When speaking of fine wines, images of beautiful vineyards in the wine growing regions of France such as Bordeaux or the Loire Valley inevitably come to mind. However, the last decade has seen a flourishing of China’s wine industry, like flowers blossoming in the spring. Supermarket shelves now have a healthy supply of home produced wines, alongside the traditional choice of bottles from established European producers.  In the beginning, Chinese consumers favored French wines, but as people have begun to understand more about wine culture, they’ve realized that other regions in the world also produce excellent quality wines. South Africa especially is beginning to catch the attention of Chinese wine lovers.

Wine [File Photo: sina.com]

It’s estimated that wine sales in China will grow by almost 40% in the next three years, making it the second largest wine market in the world. China will have surpassed France and the United Kingdom, with an estimated value of 21.7 billion US Dollars. With figures like these, no wonder South African wineries are eyeing the potential in the Far East. To that end, many wineries have already taken on Chinese employees to assist them with exploiting the Chinese market.

To most Chinese consumers, South African wine is still relatively unknown. This is partly due to the lack of advertising and information. Unlike European and Australian wines, which entered the Chinese market with forceful advertising campaigns, South African products have made slow but steady progress in China without any major promotional efforts.

Those who have had the chance to sample a South African wine, note its excellent quality, and then recommend it to others. South African wineries like to let the quality speak for itself instead of using expensive marketing strategies. One of the reasons perhaps why South African wines prove cost effective compared to French wines which can cost thousands of Chinese Yuan per bottle.

China’s impressive buying power and its growing wine industry is offering wine producers around the world enormous potential for market growth. Countries like South Africa are recognizing that opportunity to further expand internationally, and take their products to new heights, and new appreciative consumers.