Study reveals: Chinese drink more white wine

Research Manager and survey author Jenny Lis claims white wine is becoming more and more popular, particularly in the southern regions of China, despite the fact that red wines still take up about 85 percent of total sales in the country. "We have recorded a change in regional tastes. The Chinese in the south typically don't like tannine-rich, astringent wines, which it why it seems that white wines are much more popular for southern China's cuisine".

This trend has also been confirmed by the IWSR (International Wine & Spririt Research). Thus, China imported roughly 90 million liters of white wine in 2010, compared to 87 million in the previous year. The information gathered by the IWSR is evidence for the steady increase of white wine imports since 2006, where the numbers were up to 64,8 million already.

Jenny Li says that Chinese consumers were also forced to change their habits due to the high prices. Wealthy Chinese consumers are very careful when it comes to red wines - they received or gave away way too many fake Bordeaux wines. "Since there are hardly any fake white wines ont he market here, the Chinese believe that they cannot be duplicated", explains Li.

According to Alberto Fernandez, Regional Manager at Torres in China, German Riesling wines could also become very popular among the Chinese. All in all, Chinese markets are skeptical as to how far this white wine trend will actually spread within China. "This is a very localized market with huge cultural differences. What works in one region may very well be a total disaster in another", he says. (red.yoopress)