China is Australia’s fastest growing market and fourth largest export market by value, after the UK, US and Canada.
According to Wine Australia, China netted the most sales of premium Australian wines between September 2010 and September 2011, with more than 4.2m bottles priced over 600 yuan sold.
The country is on track to import 26m cases of wine by the year’s end, a 60% growth compared with last year’s figure of 16m.
Australia takes a 15% slice of the market, followed by Italy, Spain, Chile and the US.
Chinese consumers’ increasingly sophisticated thirst for imported wine is said to be driving the growth. For example, last year, Jacob’s Creek experienced a 42% sales increase in China..