Impact Seminar Snapshot: Don St. Pierre, Jr. On China’s Fast-Growing Imported Wine Market
April 3, 2012The imported wine business in China has exploded in recent years, as Don St. Pierre, Jr., CEO of leading importer ASC Fine Wines, discussed in his speech “China’s Burgeoning Wine Market” at the Impact Marketing Seminar. In just a few years, wine imports to China have more than doubled, increasing from 10 million cases in 2009 to 26 million cases last year, according to China Customs.
In the mid-2000s, China’s domestic wine producers responded to increased demand from government and business entertaining and began to premiumize, St. Pierre said. Prices on domestic wines rose from an average of CNY30 ($5) a bottle up to as much as CNY500-CNY800 ($80-$127). With that development, the price gap between domestic wines and imports narrowed, and Chinese consumers began to take notice. In a matter of years, the number of wine importers in China went from 1,000 to more than 20,000. “At the same time as we’ve seen this massive increase in wine imports into China, there’s been a very significant decrease in professionalism in the industry,” St. Pierre said. “The government has deregulated the wine import business, where now it’s quite easy to get an import distribution license. This has also led to more problems with counterfeit and fake products.”
While growth is expected to continue, St. Pierre said he anticipates many changes for the Chinese wine market in the coming years, such as increasing minimum standards required for the imported wine distribution business and changes in taxes applied to imported wine; domestic wineries continuing to increase quality; more international wineries taking an interest in China; and wealthy Chinese consumers expanding their interests beyond Bordeaux and Burgundy to other iconic wines around the world. “I see China becoming the number-one consumer of super-premium wines in the world over the next 10 years,” he said.
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