Hong Kong Food & Wine Year - Best Place. Best Taste

October 30 - November 1, 2009 at West Kowloon Waterfront Promenade

Hong Kong's first vintage

"Product of Hong Kong" is new to Asia's multi-billion dollar wine industry, but The 8th Estate Winery has produced the region's first vintage."

[Source] -- Reuters

Winemakers turning to Asia to help ride out economic slowdown

WA winemakers look to Asia to beat industry downturn
By Georgia Loney of The West Australia


WA winemakers are turning to emerging markets in Taiwan, Nepal and South Korea to help the industry through the global economic crisis, as traditional markets in Britain and the US dry up.

Major wine importers from Japan, Nepal, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Taiwan and Thailand toured WA wine regions this week in search of supplies.

The value of Asian markets is rising rapidly, with China and Taiwan buying 54 per cent and 23 per cent more of Australian wine over the past year, while the volume of exports to Nepal is up 97 per cent.

Taiwanese wine importers Shelly Wu and Winston Lin signed a deal last month to import Cullen Wines from Margaret River and said there was a strong market for Australian fine wine in Taiwan but it was overwhelmingly for red varieties. Ms Wu said WA shiraz was popular. “The market for (fine wine) has been developed over the last 20 years but they mostly used to drink French wines. Now there is stronger interest in new world wines,” she said.

“There is strong interest in shiraz from Australia and the cabernet sauvignon is beautiful compared to the European style. We are adding to our portfolio of WA wines because the wine style is very elegant and very approachable to the Taiwanese palate.”

Nepalese wine buyer Amit Agrawal imports wine from the Hunter Valley in NSW and is yet to buy any WA wine.

He said the tiny country’s thriving tourism industry generated demand for fine wine. “Because we like spicy types of food, sauvignon blanc goes well,” he said.

Britain and the US remain by far the biggest wine export markets but their value has fallen 20 per cent and 12 per cent respectively over the past year.

Portuguese wines gaining ground in China

Lisbon, Portugal, 19 May – Portugal exported US$1.6 million in wine to China in 2008, a figure that is expected to rise to US$2 million this year, the brand manager for ViniPortugal, the association for Portuguese wine promotion, said Monday in Lisbon.

According to Márcio Ferreira, for 2009 “prospects are excellent,” for Portuguese sales to Hong Kong, Macau and Shanghai.

A delegation from the Portuguese winemaking sector, including ViniPortugal and 20 producers is currently in Shanghai taking part in one of the world’s most important wine and food fairs, SIAL, after presenting its wines in Hong Kong.

ViniPortugal, an inter-professional association for the promotion of Portuguese wines, in 2009 has a budget of around 200,000 euros for activities to promote Portuguese wines in that area.

Ferreira said that Portuguese wine exports to Macau had seen growth of 90 percent by value, to US$3.5 million, recovering from a fall in 2007.

The producers that are part of the delegation include Sogrape, Aliança, Quinta da Aveleda and Dão Sul. (macauhub)

[Article Source] -- MacauHub

Australian wine export data sheds some light on the industry

An Australian Wine and Brandy Corporation report released this weekend states the value of Australian wine exports declined 14% in the year ending April 2009.

The report highlights that despite overall pressure from the global financial crisis, which has strained many traditional export markets, growth in Asian markets remains robust.

The report says that more than half of the industries export decline originated from the United Kingdom. Export growth came from Hong Kong, China and Japan. China recorded the largest growth in value, with a increase of $30 million.

Another trend also highlighted in the report was a move towards lower-prices bulk wine shipments. It seems the greater market is cutting back on higher end wines in exchange for "bang for your buck."

Good news for South American and other low cost producers making quality wine which tend to struggle to break into Asian markets where consumers are VERY brand consciousness and prefer French, Italian and more recently Australian and Californian wines.

Data snips accessed from this ABC-Australia article

Hong Kong quickly growing into global wine hub

Hong Kong is on track to become the premier wine hub of the Asia-Pacific region, thanks in large to the elimination of import duties last February, 2008.

The Special Administrative Regional Government of Hong Kong decided to do abolish the duty in hopes of encouraging wine imports and creating jobs in sales, marketing, storage and logistics.

Singapore which can be argued currently holds the title as Asia's wine hub is going to have to adapt to the arrival of new comer, Hong Kong, which has aspirations develop its own capacity to serve countries throughout the region, including countries in SE Asia which Singapore currently serves.

Since abolishing the duty, U.S Department of Commerce figures show that wine exports from the U.S alone rose by more than 500% year-on-year (Feb 2008-09).

Global wine imports reached $370 million in 2008, also clocking in impressive year-on-year growth of nearly 80%.

"Hong Kong has been a top three export market for U.S. wines ever since," California Wine Institute regional director for emerging markets Eric Pope said while speaking during an event held at the Culinary Institute of America in Napa Valley where John Tsang, Financial Secretary for Hong Kong's Regional Government had gone to promote Hong Kong as a wine market hub.

He added that their vision was to make Hong Kong the platform for getting wine into other regions and for promoting wine market growth throughout Asia (click here to access a great article on this topic from the Indian Wine Academy).


It is clear global trade patterns in the wine industry have changed dramatically over the past few years. The simple scratching of duties in Hong Kong alone has had a dramatic effect on the wine markets in Asia. As India and China work to develop their own wine industries, as more places like Hong Kong open up to making trade easier and as the United States, Australia and New Zealand work to increase their market share--wine markets will again change quite dramatically.

As professionals in the industry it is up to us to keep up to date with the changes that and to constantly adapt our business plans and marketing strategies to cater to the ever changing tastes of consumers around the world.