FranceAgriMer starts campaign to promote all wine growing areas in China

The support consists above all in tastings for traders, in presentations for cooks together with typical regional wines and wine presentations for consumers. All events are framed by a concerted press campaign in China and participation in wine fairs from Beijing to Guanghzou.

At the moment, France is dominating the emerging Chinese wine market, especially with drops from Bordeaux. However, those responsible for the French wine industry and the government, as well, are interested to move the other wine regions into focus. “Besides Bordeaux, the other wine regions in our country should get the same chances to grow”, a spokesman from the ministry for agriculture says. “The campaign is to counter the increasing competition from Australia, Chile and, as well, the emerging domestic wines in China.”

“Bordeaux is, of course, integrated into the campaign, but we want to highlight the less known regions”, Isabelle Gilquin, who coordinates the actions for the Fleishman-Hillard PR agency, says. “So far, the Chinese almost exclusively focused on Bordeaux. They don’t know the wines from the Languedoc-Roussillon region or from the Loire valley. For instance, when there is a Bordeaux wine next to a Roussillon wine in the shelf, both are 15 euro, both are of the same quality, the Chinese consumer grips to the Bordeaux wine over 90 percent – just due to ignorance. To change this, the campaign wants to bring the variety and quality of French wines from all wine cultivation zones closer to Chinese importers, gastronomy and, in the end, consumers.”

The wine consumption in China amounts to about one liter per capita, whereas the Americans drink 14 liters a year, and the French 50 liters a year. But now, only two decades after China entered the wine business, it is about to surpass the USA as the biggest wine market in the world. (red.yoopress)