Chinese gaining a taste for wine

culinary cultures — By Bob Riel on March 13, 2007 at 7:55 am

There is a fun article in Newsweek International about the increased interest in wine in China. In part, the story lays out the evidence for China’s arrival as a wine drinking nation.

The average Chinese has doubled his or her wine intake over the last five years. In 2005, the Asian giant eked into the world’s top-10 wine-consuming countries. Last year Chinese wine imports doubled over the previous year … And with annual consumption at a mere .7 liter per person – compared with 57 liters in France – there’s plenty of room for growth. No wonder wine-market analysts foresee a 36 percent increase in Chinese wine imports by 2010.

This growing appetite for these imports thrills the French wine industry, which is facing increased competition from new wine makers in the U.S., Australia and other countries. Of course, some of the Chinese habits do give the French traditionalists some pause.

China’s novice wine drinkers can be a pretty gauche bunch. To hide the actual taste of foreign wines, some dilute their Bordeaux with ice or, worse, Coca-Cola. After business people raise their glasses for a toast, they tend to drain them as if they were shots of tequila.

Indeed, Ying Qunhua, China’s elegant young first secretary of the Chinese Embassy in France, recently admitted during a visit to the limestone village of Saint Emilion in Bordeaux that her colleagues back home sometimes fear wasting a bottle of fine wine on “people who won’t actually taste it.”

Nevertheless, the French are pushing ahead with plans to promote their wines in China. And there are even signs of hope that the Chinese are becoming a bit more educated about the wines they are drinking.

“Before, wine was mixed with ice or soft drinks just about anywhere,” says Alberto FernÃ¡ndez, general manager of Torres China. “Now you see people in the main cities drinking with sophistication. It is becoming normal.”

In Bordeaux, that is definitely something to toast.