Asian markets ‘key’ to Bordeaux success

Focusing on smaller wine markets in Asia such as South Korea and Vietnam is vital to continued growth, the export director of Château Palmer has said.

Speaking to dbHK, Damien Grelat who joined the Margaux estate 18 months ago, laid out the plans for the region for the next couple of years.

“We’ve been focusing more specifically on emerging markets in Asia over the last few months. South Korea is a key country for us, we’ve built up good relationships with local distributors and are getting better representation.“

Vietnam, too with an increasing emphasis on French fine dining, especially with Michel Le Roux’s 2014 venture, La Maison 1888 at the Intercontinental in Danang and many of the top hotels in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh having French restaurants has called for premium Bordeaux to appear on the wine lists.

“Vietnam has been identified as a booming market. Consumers there really love wine and we’re seeing some great results. There’s been a surge in on trade business due to the terrific French and Vietnamese restaurants,” said Grelat.

While Palmer has enjoyed years of success in China through healthy export levels, sales for Bordeaux have decreased due in part to China’s slowing demand and a surge in premium wines from other countries coming into the market.

“We’re not doing so much in China as we were – we spent a lot of time there over the last few years but felt we were neglecting other areas. Also in China, people are not as loyal to the brands they became acquainted with as they used to be. It’s an evolving market, which can only be a good thing for winemakers around the world allowing newcomers to enter but it would be not in our best interests to focus just on the Mainland.”

Tapping into the increasing consumption of wine by Asia’s younger generation, Grelat felt that Japan held the crown when it came to Palmer appreciation, followed by South Korea and Vietnam. The focus though for Palmer is to approach these countries “slowly but surely” and not aggressively pursue opportunities, “that Bordeaux has done before with China.”

“These markets [South Korea and Vietnam] are much smaller, and it makes sense for us to limit ourselves to one or two distributors. But the consumers absolutely love it and are well educated on wine, there is a good restaurant scene and they appreciate the quality. The level of knowledge is vastly increasing and people are coming over to Bordeaux for education and to see the wineries for themselves.”