Page 22 - Sphere No.28 (Mar 2011)

20 Sphere
In China much can change in a comparatively short time.
Ten years ago Western grape wine was a marginal drinks
category for the country’s 1.3 billion potential consumers.
Although there was both production and consumption, it was
nothing to compare with the huge markets for beer and local
and imported spirits.
Today all eyes in the world’s wine trade are on the emergent
Chinese market, which Watson’s Wine has just entered as a retailer
with its first outlet in Shanghai.
“If you look at Hong Kong you can see a bit of a preview of how
China will evolve, even though Hong Kong at the moment is a much more
sophisticated market for wine than China,” said James Hepple, Watson’s Wine
Operations and Marketing Controller.
“There is still a preference for Bordeaux and a fascination with French wine which
will be there for a while yet.”
Although new markets usually start with cheap, sweet, white wines, and move
towards drier, more sophisticated and more expensive reds, China started with top end
red Bordeaux. They also usually take many years to develop a base of regular drinkers,
but in the major Chinese cities this has happened virtually overnight.
Mainland China has recently
acquired a keen taste for
wine. Watson’sWine is all
set to meet the needs of this
emergent market
By William Martyn
Re ta i l
A Toast To the
Chinese
Wine
Market