Wine market shrugs off slump as consumers raise their glasses

Two customers taste on Argentine wine at a bar in Nanjing, Jiangsu province.CHINA DAILY

But the going was not easy. For one, individual consumers could afford only relatively inexpensive wines. For another, they were not very knowledgeable or well-informed about wines, hence got easily confused by a plethora of brands that had entered the market.

That is not all. Racketeers had a field day. Low-quality wines were peddled at exorbitant prices. This created a strange situation. Ignorant consumers would buy such high-cost wines assuming they must be good varieties hence expensive. And, conversely, even if good-quality wines carried promotional lower price-tags, consumers would not buy them thinking they must be of poor quality hence cheap, said Bevis.

Thankfully, all that is history. In the last three years, China's wine market has steadily recovered the path to a healthy and sustainable growth. Increasing number of consumers buy wines for their own consumption or to share with families and friends. Banquets are no longer the only occasion to enjoy wine.

What's more, consumers in China have broadened their ken and developed a taste for fine wines. They are in the mood to try more varieties sourced from different wine regions of the world.

Hard evidence of this trend comes from wine consumption figures. In volume terms, sales of imported bottled wines in 2015 have rebounded to a three-year high of 395 million liters, up 37 percent year-on-year.