Incredible bulk: Telford hits the bottle

A New Zealand winemaker has taken on the challenge of bottling wine in the heat and humidity of Hong Kong at the city’s only bottling plant, Telford.

Tanked up: Andrew Powley at home at Telford

Tucked away in Yuen Long, a quiet suburb in the New Territories is Telford, one of Hong Kong’s leading bottling and distributing companies which bottles Pepsi to be delivered around Telford’s core market of Hong Kong and Macau.

Perhaps sensing China’s increasing enthusiasm for bulk wine, (latest customs figures show that Mainland China imported 383.85m litres of wine last year, up two per cent from 2013), Telford diversified into bottling wine and has brought on the expertise of Andrew Powley to handle up to 12,000 litres that’s bottled each day.

Powley is a winemaker from New Zealand with several vintages under his belt and experience of working in Australia, the UK and in the US in Oregon, Napa and Sonoma. He is also a current contender in the Ningxia Winemakers Challenge and helped spearhead Portrait Winery in Tsuen Wan, one of Hong Kong’s few urban wineries which distilled spirits, brandy and fruit liqueurs as well as making wine from grapes shipped from Australia, Italy, the US and China.

It’s the same business model which Powley has taken on at Telford where he masterminds the quality control of the 24,000 litres of wine that arrives in a temperature-controlled 20 foot long container from suppliers in Italy and Spain as well as New Zealand, France, South Africa and Australia.

“We can bottle up to 8,000 bottles an hour,” said Powley during a tour of the bottling plant. “The constant humidity of Hong Kong makes this more challenging, especially when it comes to labelling. The ‘wrong’ conditions can delay us by days and we like to have a quick turnaround of two to three weeks before sending to the importers but we modify the environment in the bottling hall with industrial strength dehumidifiers and air conditioners and fortunately, bulk wine is less susceptible to fluctuations in temperature.”

Unsurprisingly, the majority of Telford’s wine is re-exported to China where it has undergone stringent checks at the origin and when it gets to Telford to meet the CiQ – the China Inspection and Quarantine Services).

“The wines have to have a health certificate which we provide,” said Powley. “We test the alcohol and pH and check the certificate of analysis from the origin which shows the metal levels. Due to previous food safety alerts and like many other countries, China won’t accept wine which has too high levels of copper or manganese – though these are naturally present in wine anyway. If something isn’t right, we’ll normally try and resolve it with the supplier first.”

Powley sources components from all over the world, the standard 750ml 550g bottle comes from China, larger and smaller formats from Europe, corks from Portugal and screwcaps from Europe and China. Telford has its own in-house art team to do the labels but some suppliers send their own.

But it’s the revolution of the screwcap which has seen a surge of interest from Telford’s newest customers from the likes of South Africa, Europe and Australia.

“Screwcap really is the perfect closure – something the New Zealanders and Aussies have known for years! We’re trying to convince China though, they just hanker after the traditional cork still.”

Powley is reticent about naming exactly whom he bottles for, but describes them as bulk importers who are interested in tapping into China’s enthusiasm for lower priced red wine and hasn’t noticed any decrease in the demand.

“A winery can ship their wine in bulk, we bottle it for them and can send it straight to China. We have the warehouse and logistics to make that happen. It’s true that ninety five per cent of our imports are red but there is a growing interest in Sauvignon Blanc. In fact, we have plans to do our own label New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc in the next three to four months.”

Although Telford’s main body of work is still Pepsi,  Powley plans to focus on the wine side and start contract bottling within a few months, as a response to interest he’s received from trade shows and word of mouth from his other customers. He’s confident that Telford’s 12,000 square metres of space and new bottling machinery can handle it.

“Telford already has a huge distribution network and is well-known in Hong Kong and China through the sales outlets. We’re definitely gaining momentum and it’ll be exciting to see where we are a year from now.”