Panel Discussion - Forging links between the Asian markets and the international wine industry

right, guys, finally arived at the symposium, yeehah!!! and here's my first life blog (still without pics, I'm afraid...). Moderated by Jeannie Cho Lee MW (JCL), participants: Singapore based wine writer Poh Tiong Ch'ng (PTC) and Moses Tsang (MT), chairman of various Asian councils and major foundraiser for charity events. Focus will be Hong Kong, mainland China and Singapore.

Background presented by JCL: As Facebook and Twitter are banned from China and rest of internet carefully watched by government, wine industry need to find other ways of communication. Enourmous bureaucratic efforts necessary to establish yourself. Layers of reality (what u see and what u don't see).
Japan one generation ahead, can give you an idea about where China is heading to (with some differences in regards to demography etc.). Chinese consumers are becoming more sophisticated and aware of quality now. But for most of Asian consumers, wine is a luxury product, when economy is doing well (or personal circumstances allow it), they will buy wine, if not, they will substitute it with other alc. beverage (plenty of options).
Hong Kong in a fantastic position now, with government entirely behind it, opposed to rest of market (with bureaucracy, anti-alcohol campaigns etc.).
Hong Kong's = wine hub? 93% of wine exports go to mainland China and Macao - a hub should be multidirectional, should it not? But HK's links within Asia actually not that strong. So do not over-estimate HK's powers to get you anywhere else, at least for the time being.
Majority of sales done during gift giving seasons (Chinese New Year and moon festival). Only time will tell, if new consumption patterns are coming up, supported e.g. by posh western restaurants promoting it.

PTC: Good news: China has stopped adding Sprite and Coke to their wines. Assumed reason: Quality of Sprite and Coke has improved ;-) When are westerners going to stop adding milk and sugar to their tea?
Average Chinese person today has lived 2 entirely different lifes (2 lifetimes in a lifetime), from Mao to modern, fast moving culture, strong survival instincts. Most Chinese do not really care about having a lot of background information before drinking sth., e.g. Cognac, they are masters of adapting any product to their personal needs, based on their own experience / judgement.

MT: sustainable development important on all levels. Applies to long-term relationships, objectives of joint business projects and, increasingly, enviromental aspects.

Questions:
Investments and hopes of international winemakers so closely tied to continuous growth of Chinese economy, what is the forecast? MT: Consolidation seen and starting in some places, but many places like e.g. Chongqing incredibly growing.

Consumption trends? PTC: Premium wines still used for official purposes and show-off (daily basis). And: more and more Chinese consumers actually ENJOY wines, and even get gradually more interested (particularly the younger ones).

Threat of China to compete on export markets like US? JCL: wine is seen as luxury product (see above), luxury market for this growing soooo much, so far all locally produced quality wine is absorbed by local market. Chinese wineries rather facilitating things for foreigners on the Chinese markets, by educating consumers and making the market. So see them as an opportunity / colleagues rather than threat / competitors.

Closing the panel, JCL said something I love and can entirely identify with: Let's use the term "empower the consumer" (on eye level) instead of "educating" them, which tends to be quite top-down.

Sent life from MW Symposium / Bordeaux