Wine in Wuhan
According to reports on special-interest websites, Wuhan has become the capital of French wine in China.
European products still hold a certain amount of cachet among China’s expanding middle classes, and as the spread of wealth in the country has expanded beyond the major cities of Beijing and Shanghai, the desire for European brands has spread with it.
Last November, Wuhan played host to the Festival des vins de Bordeaux et d’Aquitaine, and in the months since the city has become a key market for French wines.
And France is listening. At the end of January, Bordeaux played host to a conference designed to teach French wine producers how to market to the Chinese, while also educating Chinese buyers on terroir and vintages. The conference, called Objectif Chine, was run in partnership with China’s central government with a view to strengthening economic ties between the old and newest worlds of wine.
Wuhan – in central China – is home to 9 million people, putting it roughly on a par with London. The city is at the crossroads of transport connections to Guangzhou, Shanghai, and Chongqing, making it ideally located for its new role as a significant wine importer.
Tags: aquitaine, bordeaux, china, dordogne, french wine, perigord, red wine, white wine, wuhan