Chinese relationships bearing fruit for Australian winemakers, but how long will it last?
Australian wine sales to China have more than doubled since a free-trade agreement took effect in December 2015
Wang Zhe, a wealthy Chinese businessman from the southern city of Guangzhou, liked his glass of decade-old Chardonnay at an Australian winery so much he wanted more. So he asked to buy the entire vintage.
It was the sort of offer, made over roast lamb and vegetables at a dinner in Wang’s honour, that sent Australian wine exports to China soaring by 63 per cent to A$848 million (US$668 million) last year. And Col Peterson, the winemaker behind the Chardonnay, said Wang was the kind of buyer who had upended Australia’s wine industry.
At the dinner party, Wang, wearing a red hoodie and Prada loafers, said through a translator who works at Peterson’s Hunter Valley vineyard that the wine was “amazing”.
“I’ve tried a lot of wines from different countries, and after that I thought: ‘Australian wine is very good’,” said Wang, whose purchase at the vineyard, about 250km (155 miles) north of Sydney, sought to add more wine to a collection already full of Burgundy and Bordeaux.
His association with Peterson’s illustrates how Australian winemakers are cultivating connections in China, the world’s fastest growing wine market, that are bearing valuable fruit even as entrenched European exporters are hitting headwinds.
Policy changes have helped too. Australian wine sales to China have more than doubled since a free-trade agreement between the countries took effect in December 2015, cutting tariffs from as high as 20 per cent to about 3 per cent.