Bordeaux out to educate Chinese, fight scammers

SHANGHAI - Reports of rogue wine traders using 2009 Bordeaux futures sales to scam Chinese consumers in Shanghai have been exaggerated, Thomas Jullien, of the Bordeaux Wine Council, said on Tuesday.

He was in town to promote Bordeaux's Sept 5-30 exhibition in the France Pavilion, during which time the region will introduce a special cuve for Expo 2010 Shanghai and help advance wine culture in China.

There will also be 10-15 wine "tastings" a day, he said, as well as a "disappearing wall" of wine bottles by the latticed pavilion's mastermind, architect Jacques Ferrier.

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AFP reported last month that several agents in Shanghai were using "en primeur", a system that sees Bordeaux's most exclusive vintages sold as a future commodity up to 18 months before they are bottled, to sell wine that either does not exist or is unlikely to be delivered.

"It was exaggerated," he said of the report. "This kind of thing happens every year. I contacted the Bordeaux Index and asked for details about these agents in Shanghai, because we wanted to follow it up, but they didn't get back to me. It seems they made a big story out of nothing.

"The problem is the Chinese market is vulnerable because it is not very well educated about wine. People may think they can buy a bottle of Lafite for 20 yuan ($2.95), but it doesn't exist."

Part of Jullien's mandate this September is to raise awareness of wine appreciation in China, he said, while promoting the 60 appellations within the greater Bordeaux region and the environmental messages of the city. Bordeaux, a port city with a population of 1 million, has turned its city center into a car free zone. In their place, trams have been provided and parks built where traffic used to pass.

Last year Bordeaux vintners sold 20 million of the 650 million bottles they produced to China, more than double the previous year's sales figure, he said. France accounts for two-thirds of all sales, while England, Germany and the Netherlands eat up another 12 percent.

The United States was the next biggest customer until the global recession caused prices to plummet, with one of Bordeaux's biggest customers, US importer Chateau & Estate Wines, ending its contract last year.

"In terms of volume, for the first time last year China was our biggest market outside Europe," said Jullien. "The increase in China is more than making up for what we lost in the US."

"We are also seeing a new pattern emerging, with the kind of Chinese who buy yachts in Hong Kong now buying top vintages and opening them with their friends, rather than just using them as an investment."

Hong Kong only snapped up 25 percent as many bottles as the mainland last year, but the total value was comparatively higher, a testament to Hong Kong's high-end market.

Hong Kong used to add a tax of 80 percent to imported wine, but it removed this completely in early 2008, which means that holiday-goers from the mainland can now pay for their trips by taking home the legally permitted two bottles per person.

The import tax for wine brought into the mainland is 48 percent. Some 90 percent of all the wine sold in the mainland is made in China.

China Daily