NewAsia to remain most important market, says Sotheby's Wine chief

When Jamie Ritchie joined Sotheby's to start his career as a wine auctioneer a quarter of a century ago, there were relatively few Asian wine customers.

In 2015, Asians are the biggest buyers of wine, both for their parties and for pure investment.

"Asia will continue to be the most important wine-buying market. There are so many Asians who like to enjoy wine but there is no local supply of top-end wine. As such, they will continue to be the biggest buyers in the auction markets in the following years," Ritchie, the chief executive and president of Americas and Asia at Sotheby's Wine, told the South China Morning Post.

Ritchie, a Briton who lives with his wife and two children in New York, visits Hong Kong regularly as the city has become a major wine auction market since 2009. He chatted with the Post at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre in Wan Chai where he was preparing for the latest wine auction held in Hong Kong last week.

Ritchie said that in the years since 1990, when he first joined Sotheby's, Hong Kong had always been home to important wine buyers at auction."Back then, China was not yet a market. The only wine auction was held in London, with the buyers mainly Europeans and some Americans and Hongkongers. The buyers at that time were wine lovers who wanted to buy the best wine from auction to drink and there was not yet a concept of buying wine as an investment," he said.

Since then, Asia's burgeoning economies, and the development of a taste for the Western lifestyle in mainland China and other countries in the region, have created a strong demand for fine wine.