Chinese wine corks not yet popping abroad

The recent development of China's wine-making industry has surprised the world, and the large number of Chinese wine consumers will further push its growth, Argentina's counsellor to China said during an interview with Xinhua.

Juan Carlos Paz, minister of the Economic and Commercial Section with the Embassy of the Argentine Republic, said, "With the popularization of wine culture, China-produced wine will definitely have a promising future."

But the ambassador from one of the world's most renowned wine-producing nations added that, although he is positive about Chinese-made white wine, the country's reds still need more technical mastery behind them.

His comments reflect the views of other experts on the barriers to China's wine producers achieving success in countries where viniculture is already well-established.

As China's economy has boomed in recent years, its wine industry has witnessed steady growth. Now, many of the big players in this domestic scene have a desire to expand into overseas markets.

According to statistics provided by the China Culture Association of Poetry and Wine, the volume of China-produced wine grew each year between 2006 and 2010 at an average of 18 percent, and the revenue of the domestic wine industry reached 34.2 billion yuan in 2011, up 36.3 percent year on year.

According to Zhen Jianguo, former Chinese ambassador to Denmark and Greece, the European Union has established strict rules on imported food and beverages.

But, while it is relatively easy to distribute alcohol to European markets, China-produced wine is still rarely seen in the continent, Zhen said.

In order to spread Chinese wine culture, Zhen told Xinhua, he always treated his foreign guests with bottled wine with the brand names Great Wall and Dynasty, which were carefully chosen and bought from China.

"Many foreign guests praised the taste after drinking it," the former ambassador claimed. "But China-produced wine is rarely recognized by foreign consumers."

Conesa Didier, French manager of Maxim's restaurant in Hefei, capital city of central China's Anhui Province, said that Chinese wine tastes light but has much room to improve.

France is a country with a long history of wine and pays a lot of attention to the quality and the process of making it, Didier stressed.

"France only sells a small sum of China-produced wine," he said. "The quality and producing process is of great importance and Chinese wine should do more on that."

Guo Yalu, of the China branch of Italia Wine Alliance, explained that China only has a short history of developing wine, and foreigners' lack of recognition for the product restricts exports of Chinese wine.

Zhen suggested that the strongest Chinese companies cooperate with foreign enterprises to first obtain the recognition of overseas consumers and then storm markets in Europe and even across the world.

Kent Leung, managing director of ECI (Euro Castle International) Wine Cellar said that benign competition between Chinese-made wine and imported wine can help the development of the domestic wine industry.

In his view, China now has some nice wine chateaus which deserve the awards they have won in international competitions, though the chateaus may not well known by the majority in China.

"As long as those chateaus insist on developing wine with good quality, I believe China-produced wine will have overseas markets," Leung added.