“When I choose a wine, it should be ripe,” said Palette Vino’s founder and managing director, John Gai, as we tasted two wines at its Dongsi Yitiao location. Swirling the glass thoughtfully he added, “And it should taste ripe and balanced.”

John Gai, founder and managing director at Palette Vino's

For the 41-year-old Beijing native, chef and wine expert, wine appreciation is an education that need not be expensive.

And it is this idea that forms the foundation of his two Beijing-based businesses: Palette Wines, a wine wholesale and distribution company, and Palette Vino, bistros he opened to bring affordable foreign wines and his passion for fine dining together.

Palette Wines, the main importer for Palette Vino restaurants, is how Gai manages to keep prices reasonable.

“Seventy percent of our wines we import ourselves,” he said. “We negotiate the lowest price from producers, vineyards and agents and then ship them to China, where we manage that cost as well.”

Just how Gai got his passion for wines and fine dining has been an odyssey, and spans the entire Eurasian continent.

In 1992, after a job opening a Chinese restaurant in Hungary fell through, he took the time to travel around the Baltic States and fell in love with Talinn, Estonia’s capital city.

“It was a beautiful, medieval city,” he recalled.

“It was right after it gained its independence from the Soviet Union, so I saw an opportunity to open the first Chinese restaurant in all the Baltic States,” he said.

However, it was only when Gai returned to Beijing in 1996 that he started managing the CourtYard hutong restaurant and became closely involved with wines.

Two years later in 1998 he met members of the Zonin family, who run Italy’s largest privately owned vineyard and winemaking business, at a Beijing wine exhibition and they took him on as their manager for China.

“It was my job to look for the importers and distributors for the company, analyzing local market trends and reporting it back to the family,” he said.

“I also helped train the staff to know about wines.”

In September 2002 he founded Palette Wines, a name suggested by a close friend to impart a rich variety of flavors and colors.

Until recently Palette Wines sold exclusively to hotels, companies and private customers.

But in 2005, it opened the first Palette Vino restaurant and wine bar in Shunyi district near Pinnacle Plaza, then a second in Central Park (a retail wine store), and by the end of 2008 another in Dongsi Yitiao.

Palette Wines claims the largest South African wine portfolio in Beijing, using nine different vineyards and each with two or three different wines, plus extensive Spanish, Italian and Australian portfolios.

But his diverse selection is being overlooked by inexperienced and wealthy taste buds.

“Some people drink names, not wine,” he said declaratively.

“They just don’t know enough, which is why the industry of importing wines into China tends to be big business.”

Gai said the costs of wine are dropping in developed markets such as the US and parts of Europe, Holland and Germany.

“It seems costs became more reasonable over time because it became more competitive, and people would not accept these high prices,” he said.

“This trend has not really reached big hotels and restaurants here.

Despite his best efforts to keep the cost of wines available at his bistros low, Gai’s business struggles to expand beyond Beijing. Gai admits he has had a tough year.

“I think, for now, finance is a big issue,” he said.

“It really depends on how we look at this as a long-term investment and whether or not we copy it to another location.”

To show off some “absolutely, very delicious” Spanish wines, reasonably priced from suppliers between 200 and 300 yuan, Gai served up a bottle of Abrego 2006, made from Tempranillo grapes found in Castilla, Spain (200 yuan).

With its low tanning, caramel and prune accents with a medium body, it demands to be served all by itself.

“The grapes were picked at the right time,” he remarked.

“This vineyard picks them at night and quickly transports them to the winery, and the barrels are medium-toasted oak so as not to overpower.”

His full bodied and rich personal insights are evidently present in every bottle he sells.

Golden Dragon Holdings, Inc. is a Chinese company which conducts the majority of its food and beverage business in the Asia-Pacific Rim economies. The company’s functions as a importer, exporter and distributor of staple, organic, specialty, gourmet and foreign foods and beverages.

This week, Gold Dragon Holdings announced that it had registered its new trademark for its private label wine, “Endless Wines.” Both the red and white wines are made from a blend of exclusive grapes from Spain’s Rioja region.

The company mission statement is simple. “Good food, high-quality food, wholesome, healthy, and delicious food”. Gold Dragon Holdings strives to help independent producers and growers worldwide of fine quality foods, introduce their products to China and other areas in the Asia region.

Chief Operating Offiicer, Mr. Cesar Cuenca explained in this article “We have identified a unique niche in the wine market in China, we call this niche the 100RMB retail wine market. Typically imported wine in China sells at a higher end of the wine market, we have selected exceptional grapes to start producing high quality red and white wines at reasonable cost to consumers. Good wine does not mean expensive wine.”

I highly recommend checking out the full article linked here and in the above paragraph because it is full of the company’s assessment of various elements of the China wine market.

Current State:

China is a large emerging country with an amazing potential of wine consumption. The influence of western eating, drinking habits and rising average incomes have been key factors in the fast development of wine market in China. China has stepped into one of the ten largest wine consumption markets in the world. The value of the market has more than doubled over the last five years and a lot of signs are showing a bright future of China wine market.

Growth Rate:

What greatly spurs the speedy growth of imported wines from wine producers around the world, such as France, Italy, Spain, Australia, New Zealand, Chile, Argentina, South Africa, Austria, US and some other European traditional wine-producing countries. The annual growth rate of imported wines is up to 13-15%.

Targeted customers:

Wine is now becoming the fashionable drink for the wealthy younger generations in China’s cities, and the “badge” drink for China’s wealthiest elite. With about 600 million young Chinese exploring new types of alcoholic drinks, the potential market for sales of wine in the future is so great without any doubt.

SOURCE Golden Dragon Holdings, Inc.

http://www.gdfbhk.com