Raising his glass

Simon Berry says Chinese customers are buying wines to drink, not just for investment. Wang Zhuangfei / for China Daily

Simon Berry can pinpoint the exact moment he realized the world's wine market was shifting to Asia. "I can give you the date," the snowy haired Englishman says. "July 2, 1994. That's the day we opened our first wine shop in Heathrow airport." It was wine merchant Berry Bros & Rudd's second retail location. Their first, in St James Street, London, opened way back in 1698. "We imagined when we opened Heathrow that we would be selling to British people traveling abroad. Within the first half-hour, we realized we were selling to international business people traveling home," Berry says. "That was when we began to think we ought to look at Asia."

Berry is a descendent of a woman known as the widow Bourne, who started Berry Bros & Rudd when King William III was on the English throne. Berry is now chairman of the retailer that has evolved from selling tea from China to the British aristocracy in the 17th century, to selling wine from China - and, of course, plenty of other places - to connoisseurs from all over the world.

Outside their two physical locations in London, Berry Bros & Rudd has a significant online presence. Their BBX program, Berry Bros Exchange, allows wine lovers to buy, sell and trade online. They were one of the first wine merchants on the Internet - actually they were one of the first anything on the Internet - setting up an online presence in 1994.

BBX means that despite having no physical retail shop in Asia, 9 percent of their wine is bought by customers in Hong Kong and the mainland. This is the reason Berry is visiting. It's his first trip to the Chinese mainland in 10 years and he has come to see firsthand how the wine market has evolved.