With wine awareness in China growing exponentially, will the
palates of Chinese glitterati soon be doused in France's finest
bouquets?
The International Wine Culture Promotion Association (IWCPA) has
announced a donation of 100,000 wine cellars to middle-class
Chinese families to promote wine culture in the country.
In Europe, a traditional wine cellar is a vaulted underground
space kept cool and away from sunlight. However, no need to worry,
the association is not considering bulldozing cellars under
Beijing's residential compounds. The IWCPA modern cellars are
wooden box-like structures that can be installed anywhere in the
house, the association said here Tuesday.
Each cellar is valued at 7980 yuan (US$1000). Recipients will
pay 2,980 yuan to become members of the association with the rest
gifted by the IWCPA. The 2980-yuan fee can be recovered if
recipients purchase enough wine from affiliated retailers.
The 500-million-yuan (US$64 million) donation, sponsored by
wineries from 11 countries, targets Chinese wine-lovers, said
Stephen Paul Thompson, representative of the Canada-based
association in China.
Observers said the marketing gambit would help overseas wineries
conquer the domestic market.
The first 20,000 cellars are earmarked for Beijing and Shanghai
and recipients are being actively sought, Thompson said.
The happy few will be expected to own their own home (no less
than 120 square meters), a private car, to have higher level
education, or to be VIPs in banking, aviation or telecommunications
industries.
The IWCPA said the criteria for selecting recipients were
designed to ensure that they were genuine wine lovers who could
afford to be.
China imported 60,600 tons of wine in the first seven months of
this year, up 88.8 percent year-on-year.
Even though wine consumption is growing rapidly in China, per
capita consumption is only 0.5 liters annually, one-fifteenth of
the world average and only accounts for just one percent of the
country's annual alcohol consumption.
(Xinhua News Agency November 30, 2006)