Mavaron's Twitter

    follow me on Twitter

    2012-05-01

    Some observations on China wine market I

    China effect?

    China has become the buzzword in the wine industry in recent years. Most of the time, the reference to China effect is used to justify skyrocketing wine prices, especially those of Bordeaux and Burgundy.  After the past few go-go years, it seems everyone is now taking a break and tries to figure out where the China wine market is heading in the future.

    I am not a wine expert or wine dealer. However, I do have my own first-hand experience about the China wine market. Given the great misunderstanding that I read everyday on the Internet, I would like to provide some of my own observations on the China wine market.

    When talking about the China wine market, people will probably think of Chateau Lafite at first. I still remember when I bought a case of Carruades de Lafite IB and sold back to the dealer just a few months later at twice the previous price. While this is an impressive case, it doesn't provide much information. First, in terms of this part of market, China is the same as all other wine-consuming countries, i.e., dominated by the basic supply-demand relationship. Given a limited supply (well, let's not consider those fake bottles at the moment), increasing demand leads to increasing price. Second, Chateau Lafite is not big enough to benefit anyone (excluding the halo effect at the moment). So I guess people may be concerned about two more fundamental  questions: What is the real driving force behind the Lafite frenzy? And, for those wine producers and dealers who can't get their hands on Lafite, what is the meaning of a prospering China wine market to them?





    没有评论: