Record Chinese exhibitors at Vinexpo Bordeaux

The number of Chinese exhibitors at the upcoming Vinexpo Bordeaux has increased to 22, a new record turnout, signaling the country’s fast-ascending prominence in the wine world.

New exhibitors include Ningxia Helan Mountain, representing China’s first official appellation, being developed into a multi-billion dollar wine oasis that is said to be three times the size of California’s famed Napa Valley on the border of the Gobi Desert 500 miles west of Beijing.

Chinese visitors accounted for the largest contingent of foreign trade professionals at Vinexpo Bordeaux in 2015 and for the first time outnumbering the US. With China currently at the forefront, Vinexpo Bordeaux 2017 is expecting Chinese visitors to once again take the lead on international visitor numbers.

China’s prominence at Vinexpo Bordeaux reflects the county’s emergence as the world’s fastest-growing wine market – and leading consumer of red wine – expected to become the world’s top wine-consuming nation within the next 20 years, from a current ranking at number five.

The China market is the equivalent of a modern-day ‘Gold Rush’ for the wine industry, significantly boosted by online trading led by Alibaba tycoon Jack Ma’s Tmall reaching hundreds of millions of new, and crucially young, China consumers.

The platform’s potential for producers and importers will be explained at a seminar during the expo by Tmall’s food general manager Zhao Lei, and International Business Development Manager Ada Xu-Fanouillere.

Titled ‘Big Data at the heart of the wine industry’s new opportunities’, the seminar will note that Tmall sold more than 23 million bottles of wine in 2015 and is now the biggest online wine sales platform in the country. Its alcohol sales tripled from 2013 to 2016.

Also reflecting the industry’s recognition that China is crucial to its future is a major conference shining the spotlight on ‘China’s Diversifying Wine Market’.

“An important key to understanding China is recognising that it is far too big to be approached as just one market –  but geographically divisible into a series of independent sub-markets, each with their own structure, consumer demand and trade dynamics,” said Vinexpo CEO Guillaume Deglise.

Industry experts shedding light on the subject at the conference include Terry Xu, co-founder of Aroma Republic and wine consultant for online platform Yesmywine.com; Richard Halstead and Chuan Zhou of Wine Intelligence; and Master of Wine Debra Meiburg MW.

This year’s Vinexpo will be held from 18-21 June, and here are things to expect.