The story of wine in China is a story of new found affluence and brilliant marketing. China is on every wine producer, distributor and lover’s mind. It has and will continue to change the world of wine. Frankly China wine will continue to be a huge story in the years to come and so we are proud to present this exhaustive report of wine in the Middle Kingdom.
Recent years have seen substantial growth in Chinese grape wine market. From 2001 to 2012, the grape wine output in China had shown an upward trend with the CAGR of 16.5%. However, the 18th CPC National Congress called on the restriction of spending by central government bodies on official overseas visits, official vehicles, and official hospitality, “six bans”, and alcohol prohibition in the military, leading to the slowdown of growth or even decline in China grape wine market. In 2013, the output and consumption of grape wine in China went down by 4.7% year-on-year and 13.7% year-on-year, respectively.
By region, the consumption in China grape wine market varies a lot in terms of development. For now, China’s southeast coastal regions, including Shanghai, Guangdong, Fujian and Zhejiang where are economically developed, have achieved provincial-level market scale valuing RMB1-3 billion, city-level market scale valuing RMB100 million, and county-level market scale valuing RMB10 million. However, in the north and the vast central and western regions, the grape wine consumption is still at a stage of market incubation, with the exception of such cities as Beijing and Chengdu.
Due to the restriction of weather and geographical conditions, the grape wine production in China demonstrates higher regional concentration. In China, there are just three provinces and municipalities seeing the annual grape wine output of 100 million liters or more. Among these, the largest grape wine producers come to Shandong (the Bohai Bay area) and Jilin (Tonghua), with the combined output in 2013 amounting to 712 million liters or 64% of the national total. In Shandong, Chardonnay, Carbernet Sauvignon, Merlot, and Carignane are major grape wine varities. Also, planting bases of homegrown grape wine producers like CHANGYU, Great Wall and Dynasty are located in Shandong.
With China’s accession into the WTO, China’s import tariff on grape wine was reduced from 65% to 14%, bringing a large inrush of foreign wines into the Chinese market. In 2012, the wine import volume of China reported 394 million liters, equivalent to 2.4 folds of the figure in 2008. In 2013, the Ministry of Commerce launched anti-dumping and anti-subsidy investigations on made-in-EU wines. Together with the impact brought by the government call to restrict the spending by the central government bodies on official overseas visits, official vehicles, and official hospitality, China’s total import volume of grape wine witnessed a year-on-year decline of 4.5%. In 2013, China’s import volume of bottled wine accounted for 74% of the total, with France as the major import origin.
China grape wine industry is to enter into a stage for structural adjustment after 2013 (for instance, de-stocking targeting wine dealers, grape wine producers’ orientation to low-and medium-end market), in order to pop the market bubble for a comeback to the right track. It is estimated that the CAGR of grape wine consumption in China between 2013 and 2016 will post 9.7%.