Mir Global Marketing LLC’s winter promotional tour of the major Chinese metropolises is now under way. For the next few weeks we will be bring you updates live from the Chinese cities of Shanghai, Guangzhou and Beijing.

Bringing fine wines from around the world to markets throughout Asia.

Join us this winter (Nov 25 – Dec 17), this winter in the Chinese cities of Shanghai, Beijing and Guangzhou as Mir Global Marketing LLC presents our wines of the world in China’s fastest most sophisticated urban centers.

If you would like to request information about our upcoming promo tour of the Middle Kingdom (China), please email our International Trade Consultant, Bennett Reiss for more information

By Peter Brieger (AFP) – Nov 7, 2009

HONG KONG — Chinese wine imports have soared more than ten-fold in the past few years but foreign producers hoping to cash in on the boom are warning the market is fickle and not for the faint of heart.

China is on track to import 10 million cases of wine this year, up from 840,000 in 2004, according to the Hong Kong Trade Development Council (HKTDC).

Wangfujing, Beijing - 2006

Asian wine consumption, excluding Japan, is expected to double from this year to 27 billion US dollars in 2017, the council believes, with much of that growth driven by Hong Kong and cash-rich China.

In another sign of the growth of the market, last week’s Hong Kong International Wine and Spirits Fair, the second such annual event, attracted 520 exhibitors from 34 countries — double last year’s number.

“Many people are shocked by the speed of the growth,” said Raymond Yip, the HKTDC’s assistant director. “But there is a lot of pent-up demand for wine.”

The disposable income of an emerging Chinese middle class has grown and many of its members are choosing wine as a healthier alternative to spirits, Yip said.

“People are getting more health conscious and all of a sudden wine has become fashionable,” he added.

But Raymond Signorello, proprietor of Signorello Vineyards in California’s Napa Valley, said he has been struggling to find the right agent to market his premium reds on the mainland.

“It’s kind of a gold rush,” he told AFP from his booth at the fair.

[...]   Click here to read the full article from AFP

“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.

Ho Yeow Sun, better known as Sun Ho, is a Singaporean pop music singer. Sun started her Mandarin pop singing career in 2002 and has since exploded. She has worked with the likes of Wyclef Jean, Diane Warren, The Underdogs, David Foster and Carole Bayer Sager.

Although Globowines is a bit late on bringing the existence of this video to your attention, we no less thought our readers would get a kick out of this. This song a result of a 2007 collaborated with writer/producer and Fugees co-founder Wyclef Jean. The music video was directed by Wayne Isham and featured Tony Matterhorn and Elephant Man alongside Wyclef and Sun. Wyclef was also co-writer and executive producer of Ho’s English album, due for release in 2009.

In 2008, Ho was featured in an opening spot on Wyclef’s American and Canadian concert tour, and invited to appear in his music video “Fast Car,” featuring his duet with Paul Simon.[31] She also performed “China Wine” with Wyclef at the SonyBMG Europe Music Awards After Party.

Not bad a Singaporean pop star eh? Go China Wine!

[Source] – AFP

Hong Kong overtakes NY, London in wine auctions
Hong Kong has overtaken New York and London as the largest wine market for two of world’s biggest auction houses, the firms said Tuesday, highlighting a trend spurred by surging demand from China.

Sotheby’s said its wine auction held in the southern Chinese city over the weekend, together with another one in April, have raised 14.3 million dollars.

The figure surpassed those of New York and London, which respectively recorded sales of 10.5 million dollars from four auctions and of eight million dollars from seven auctions held this year, the auction house told AFP.

Christie’s also said that its recent auction results have also shown that Hong Kong is taking over New York and London as its largest wine market.

“In Sotheby’s first year of selling wine in Asia, Hong Kong has become (its) most important wine centre, ahead of very successful auctions in New York and London,” said Serena Sutcliffe, head of Sotheby’s international wine sales.

“Sotheby’s have exciting plans to build on this momentum to bring to the market top collections in 2010,” she added.

Sotheby’s and its rival Christie’s began to hold regular wine and champagne auctions in Hong Kong after the city’s government abolished duties on wine imports in 2008 in a bid to establish the city as a regional wine hub.

China’s economic boom and growing demand for top French wines has become the key driver of Hong Kong’s wine market, as can be seen from the increasing number of mainland Chinese bidders at the auctions.

At Sotheby’s weekend sales, a Chinese bidder splashed out a record 93,077 dollars for a bottle of 1982 Chateau Petrus Imperial.

Sutcliffe said 99 percent of buyers in the two-day auction were Asian buyers, including those from China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, Indonesia and the Philippines.

The latest auction fetched almost 30 percent more than Sotheby’s estimate of 6.13 million dollars.

David Elswood, head of Christie’s international wine department, said its Hong Kong wine auctions had the highest average lot values among its global sales, at 150,000 dollars per lot.

“Asian buyers are very active not only in Hong Kong, but also in the international wine market,” Elswood told AFP.

This spring, Asian buyers accounted for 61 percent of Christie’s global wine sales in New York, London and Hong Kong, whereas they made up only seven percent of global buyers in 2005, he said.

“Buyers from Hong Kong, Taiwan and mainland China also grew substantially between last autumn and this spring at our auctions. We expect this trend to continue.”

For a pricey $1320 you can get your hands on the latest market analysis of China’s burgeoning wine market.

This report covers the market for alcoholic wine in the People’s Republic of China. The report covers the red, white and blended grape and sparkling wines sectors. There is also some coverage of fruit wines (normally referred to as ‘berry wines’ in China) in the report. This report does not include yellow rice wine, or Shaoxing wine.

KEY REPORT FEATURES

This recently updated report includes:
- An overview of China’s total food market with sales statistics up to interim 2009;
- The total value and volume of wine consumption, including consumption channel breakdowns and by type of wine, up to interim 2009;
- The total value and volume of wine retail sales, including by sector, up to interim 2009;
- Leading manufacturer market shares based on revenues to 2008;
- Volume & value forecast the meat market in China up to 2014;
- The retail wine market background and current issues;
- Marketing & distribution;
- SWOT analysis
- Key manufacturer profiles
- Key contacts & trade events;
- Overview of China’s demographics and macroeconomics

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

China claims over 160,000 acres of vineyards nationwide, but much is in remote areas, such as those in Tibet near Kazakhstan, where Silk Road traders brought seeds centuries ago. There is also a small native grape (Vitus thunbergii) that grows wild north of Shanghai. And Russian visitors brought plantings of Muscat and Ratsiteli to China in the early twentieth century.

Although having been started at the beginning of the 20th century, the wine industry in China has only recently begun to develop into a significant market. Chinese consumers have tended to stick to what they know, being beer and grain spirits – drinks that offer a higher alcohol level per unit than wine.

However, wines have attained consumer acceptance, not least due to Chinese politburo member Li Peng, who decreed that state banquets should be lubricated with wine instead of spirits in 1996. The influence of western eating and drinking habits have been key in this, as have rising average incomes in China. Indeed, wine is now becoming the fashionable drink for the wealthy younger generations in China’s cities, and the “badge” drink of China’s wealthiest élite.

The value of the market has more than doubled over the last seven years, and has become much more sophisticated. Not only are there more foreign wine imports available in restaurants and in the shops, but the number, variety and quality of domestic wines has also increased. This has served the market by providing local consumers with a greater array of cheaper products to try.

However, the domestic market has moved on, and domestic wines are now reaching a level of quality that they can compete on price with imported wines, and even look to developing an export market. However, the domestic market is where most Chinese wineries are looking to develop their sales. With about 600 million young Chinese, all exploring new types of alcoholic drinks, the potential market for sales of wine in the future is great.

Click here to order your copy