Richer Asians get into the spirit of wine drinking

Richer Asians get into the spirit of wine drinking

By Valerie Lee

SINGAPORE (Reuter): Asians, armed with fat wallets and backed by burgeoning economies, are getting into the spirit of wine drinking -- the more expensive the better.

"Far East" buyers dominated a vintage wine auction at Christie's this summer, paying a total of 88,880 pounds (US$138,200) for six lots of rare wine and champagne, one factor in the auction house's decision to hold its first southeast Asian wine auction in Singapore in October.

At a Sotheby's auction in April, a Far Eastern buyer spent more than 63,000 pounds on several lots of a scarce French vintage, Le Pin.

"In terms of overall volume, Asian buying is not so important but in value it's very, very important," said Ch'ng Poh Tiong, editor and publisher of Singapore's Wine Review magazine.

"It's the kind of buying that says "I must have the most expensive and the most high-priced wines'. If you watch Asian habits, especially among the Chinese. Sharks fin, for instance, has no flavor except for the soup stock, but Asians must always have something that is the most expensive, they must have the best cut. So that is the case with wines," he added.

Asians' tipples of choice remain beer and hard liquor but wine drinking has been on the rise with distributors in Thailand, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore and China reporting increasing wine sales.

Ronnie Reyes of Jardine Wines and Spirits Philippines Inc said the wine market in the Philippines has posted 15 to 20 percent year-on-year growth over the last five years.

In Singapore, some 200,000 cases -- 1.8 million liters -- of wine were consumed in 1995 and in the last five years consumption has grown 10 percent every year.

"It has to do with more affluence, a growing sophistication and also more education," said Jean-Francois Balusseau, head of SOPEX, the French quasi-government body which promotes French foods and wines.

Balusseau said Asia, excluding Japan, still makes up a "very teeny market" for French wine exports but that he expected the figures to grow every year.

Aldo Bartovic, export manager of Australia's Petaluma Wines

He said these countries now import about 1.1-1.2 million liters of wine each annually from Australia.

"In terms of the future, more and more Australian producers are looking at Asia being a very significant market," Bartovic said.

"We have a very good relationship with the consumer, distributor and journalists in the region. Europeans tend to present their wines with a lot of hullabaloo, pomp and ceremony. Australia tends to be less that way inclined and we are into the market place quite quickly," he added.

Drinkers in China are also shifting from fiery traditional liquor made from sorghum, rice or wheat -- often more than 50 percent proof -- to wine.

Red wine has become popular at Chinese weddings, partly because red is considered a lucky color in Chinese tradition. Wine drinking has even won the seal of approval from China's leaders with Premier Li Peng telling members of parliament this year that "drinking fruit wines is helpful to our health, does not waste grain, and is good for social ethics".

Asia's growing passion for the grape isn't limited to quaffing it either; vineyards have long been in existence in China and Japan, but are now sprouting in India, Thailand and Vietnam.

In India, Champagne India, the country's only maker of sparkling wine, is doing its version of selling ice to Eskimos and exporting its product to France and Germany as well as the United States, Britain and Sweden.

The firm turns out 800,000 bottles of wine a year and plans to launch its premium eight-year old sparkling wine.

India's other vintner, Grover Vineyards, sells around 130,000 bottles a year in the domestic market.

In Vietnam, plans are in the pipeline to extend a 5.7 hectare (14.1 acres) vineyard to 1,000 hectares (2,471 acres) with the trial cultivation of a French vine strain at the Vietnam-Mongolia farm in the northern province of Ha Tay, The Saigon Times Daily reported recently.

In Thailand, a winery in the northeastern province of Loei run by Italian-Thai company CPK International Co, produces Chateau de Loei, a label served by Thai Prime Minister Banharn Silpa-archa to his counterparts at the Asia-Europe summit in Bangkok earlier this year.

Or Asian producers could barrel into the wine business the Singaporean way: buy a stake in a vineyard thousands of miles (km) away as did three Singapore architects.

They forked out more than Singapore $2 million ($1.4 million) to buy a 45 hectare (111 acres) vineyard 40 km (25 miles) north of Cape Town, South Africa, the Business Times said.

Bartovic said investors from Thailand and Hong Kong have also been to Australia to check out investments in the country's vineyards.

Ch'ng of the Wine Review says Asia's interest in wine can only get better as the region's booming young economies mature.

"I imagine most of us in the wine trade hanker for the day when wine becomes a commonplace drink on a daily basis," he said. (US$1.00 = S$1.41)