Exclusive:Chinese Wine Imports Rocket

It's no secret that the wine market in China is booming. But CRI's been given exclusive access to latest figures that illustrate just how much. According to London-based International Wine and Spirit Research group, China imported over 14 times more wine in 2010 than just 5 years ago. And Chinese adults are now consuming more wine than ever. Dominic Swire brings us more from a recent international wine tasting event in Beijing.

"From this aroma you can tell there's a lot of honey and peach. The aroma is strong and the colour is pale…"

Kenny Cheung is a businessman from Hong Kong. He not only sells wine, he teaches people about it, too.

"We have to teach properly, slowly how to appreciate. Because, strictly speaking, the product of wine is the hard work of all the farmers and all the workers and the wine makers. That's why we really need to appreciate their hard work."

Kenny's speaking at an international wine tasting event in Beijing. Here European producers are giving out wine to taste. And it seems to be going down well.

"The taste is sweet and a little sour, but its good!"

"I think wine represents a culture, especially Western culture, which represents knowledge rather than alcohol for me. I'd like to discover more about this culture and history."

"What wines have you tasted today?"

"I like French wine, wine from Alsace I like a lot. But I've not tried this one yet because you just talked to me!"

"Please try, please try!"

"Yes, it's good, balanced."

Wine drinking's growing increasingly popular in China. New figures from London-based International Wine and Spirit Research group show China imported over 14 times more wine in 2010 that it did 5 years before. But this still only accounts for less than 3 percent of the global market for imported wine. So it's obvious what wine makers at this event are getting excited about. Michael Thurner is a wine expert from Austria. He helped organise this event.

"Behind this growth, I think is a strong middle class, which is getting into the situation of suddenly buying a car, a fridge and all those things. They're opening up their whole lifestyles to more modern living and wine is a big part of that, it's part of a social status for those people, so they consume. They want more western products, they want to eat more western food and wine has a big, big role in this."

Over the next five years the International Wine and Spirit Research group expects consumption of wine in China to double. If this is the case, you can expect more foreign wine makers attempting to tap into this very tasty market.

For CRI, I'm Dominic Swire.