China's Blossoming Wine Industry

China has been producing wines for centuries. The earliest records date to the Han Dynasty (206 B.C.), but wine was a precious commodity used only in sacred temple rituals and in the palace of the Emperor. Modern wine making methods and a greater variety of grape vines were reintroduced in the 1980s, but the road to wine production has not been easy. As the Chinese economy has changed, the demand for higher quality wines has opened up both an importing industry and a domestic wine industry that is once again beginning to be noticed outside the Great Wall. China is already the eighth largest wine market by volume. The report quotes recent data putting it at 72m cases, and growing at 18.5% per annum. Sales of wine last year were 44 billion yuan. China is the largest consumer of wine and the 7th largest producer of grape vines.

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• Wine
• China
• Kimberley Buchanan